


Kamen Rider Utsura

by starofjustice



Series: Kamen Rider Utsura [2]
Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
Genre: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid - Freeform, Post-Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, Spoilers - Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, Spoilers - Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Trilogy: Another Ending, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2019-08-24 06:18:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 191,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16634579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starofjustice/pseuds/starofjustice
Summary: Without warning, the CR Riders are gone. The items needed to revive the victims of the last disaster have vanished. Will new players band together to solve this mystery and get the help of the CR Riders, or only look for chances to get ahead themselves? (Ex-Aid sequel season)





	1. Chapter 1

            He’d heard the phrase “a scene straight of hell” before. It always sounded like bad hyperbole a writer trying too hard to earn an award would use. But as the corner of a building collapsed from the battle raging nearby and the air filled with smoke, Yuuma started to think otherwise.

            Through the smoke he could vaguely make out the shapes of monsters he’d seen on the news, fighting shapes he could just barely start to recognize as the men who called themselves the Kamen Riders tried to stop them. All of that fighting between them was beyond him; all he knew was the warning he’d heard on the news not to play that new live action video game or he could die. Yuuma had no intention of ever getting involved in something so foolish in the first place. But as he spotted the woman ahead of him, her leg pinned under a pile of brick and concerete knocked loose by the fighting, there was something he couldn’t ignore.

            “Hold still,” he said as he crouched and started slowly pulling the debris off her so he didn’t make her injuries any worse.

            “No, please,” she gasped and touched his shoulder to interrupt him. “My son, he’s the one who needs help. He played that game because he thought he could get famous if he won it…We’ve got nothing, he wanted to save us from that,” she babbled, pointing to a spot a few meters away. There was no one there, just one of those black plastic cartridges with the clear rectangular head. The one the news said not to use, not even touch. Evidently, her son hadn’t listened.

            “He’s gone,” Yuuma said, hoping to be gentle with the news. But was there really a gentle way to say **that**?

            “No, he isn’t! They said they can bring back the people who were caught in the game! They said that! They can’t lie! It has to be true! **It has to be true!** ” the woman started to scream. She didn’t notice a figure emerging from the clouds of smoke behind her, probably attracted by all the noise she was making. His clothes were all red and white, and he had a shiny red mask peeking out from under his hood. In one hand, his fingers like long curving claws, he held a wand tipped with a glimmering red jewel. A Bugster, he remembered these things being called.

            Yuuma’s eyes darted to the cartridge lying abandoned on the ground. The monster was holding up his wand like he intended to use it, and Yuuma had no doubt the two of them were easy prey. **Unless…**

            A fireball shot from the monster’s wand, and Yuuma went diving for the cartridge. The fireball exploded behind him and he could feel it singe his back, but his fingers wrapped around the cartridge’s grip and his thumb rested on the trigger button.

            Maybe Yuuma couldn’t save the world from what was happening, but maybe he **could** save this one woman’s life. Give her hope to see her son again when the real heroes did their job. If he had just a little bit of power, maybe he could achieve one little victory.

            He hit the trigger.

 

XXX

 

            The room seemed to echo with the powerful blow that had just connected with the opponent’s body. He gasped and fell to one knee.

            “You’re hitting way too hard!” Jirou whined. “This isn’t even a match!”

            “I’m not hitting too hard, you’re getting too soft!” Kensei said, but he was smiling a bit behind his mask. Regardless his friend took off his kendo mask and protective padding and started putting them away. “Hey, we’re not done,” Kensei said to try and stop him.

            “What’s the point? When was the last time Shintaro even came to a club meeting? And how may schools even have a club like this one anymore?” Jirou sighed as he finished putting his gear away. He always looked so skinny and unassuming out of it. As much as they might not have wanted to admit it, Jirou’s build made it hard for him to excel at something as physical as kendo.

            Kensei took of his mask too, exposing a young face thin but strong, dark brown eyes shining lightly. “Shintaro’s just busy getting ready for college. He’s graduating pretty soon, you know?”

            But he already knew what Jirou would say to that. Their president wasn’t coming to kendo club anymore because he had a new girlfriend. Because his parents were rewarding him for getting into some prestigious university in Austria with a trip to see the country ahead of time. Because he’d been losing interest in kendo club for a while.

            And it seemed like their kind of club _wasn’t_ very big anymore. The school theirs used to compete against had been destroyed during the Bugster scare, and the students were relocated all over town.

            “Face it, Kensei. Nobody cares about kendo club anymore but you,” Jirou sighed. Then he walked out of the room. “Call the rest of us if you want to do something normal again sometime, okay?”

            “Okay, sure,” Kensei said. But he didn’t want to do something “normal.” He wanted to be accomplishing something, he wanted to be getting stronger. If he went home—to either one of them—there was nothing there but his family. And he’d been losing enough sleep because of them lately as it already was.

            As he walked out of school Kensei passed a girl about his age sitting on a bench. She was thin and pale, and panting for breath. But she had the longest and prettiest black hair he’d ever seen dangling behind her.

At first he thought she was just resting after a run, but after he’d past her he realized she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. “Hey, are you ok—” Kensei started to ask as he turned to face her, but the girl was gone. He looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of her. The only weird thing he noticed was what he thought was a puff of purple, crackling smoke in the air above the bench. But after a second he wasn’t sure he even saw that.

 

XXX

 

            The lights were already on inside the house with the “Hidenaga” sign out front when he got there. He sighed and gave a silent prayer that only one of his parents was there that night. Maybe he could finally get some sleep then.

            A tall, slightly overweight man with thick glasses, still wearing his grey suit pants and tie was getting out a high round pot as Kensei came in and took off his shoes. “Ah, there you are, Kensei-kun!” he called out with a smile. “Come in and help me get dinner ready.”

            “Hi, tou-san. You’re in a good mood,” Kensei said gently, trying gently to see if he could get an answer about if they were on their own for the night.

            His father smiled. “Why not? I had a good day, let’s have a good meal! You haven’t stopped liking curry, have you?”

            “Nope!” Kensei said, and for the first time all afternoon he smiled.

            “Sooooo…how was school? Learning any new moves?”

            Kensei shook his head, smiling fading, but he opened the pantry and helped line up a row of ingredients. “Nobody’s coming anymore. The school’s probably going to close the club at this rate.”

            “Oh? Thought about any others you might want to join?”

            “No, tou-san,” Kensei said quickly, hoping to end the discussion. His father shrugged one shoulder and twisted the dial on the stove and one of the burners came to life. “So, is…the divorce going okay? Is kaa-san keeping that thing?”

            “Yes, she is,” his father sighed. “She says it’s an important memento. Personally I think the police should’ve confiscated it, but—”

            “The owner’s mom didn’t want it around, and I don’t blame her,” Kensei finished for him. “Don’t know why we should keep it, though.”

            His father cupped his shoulder, and gave him a firm squeeze. “I don’t know either, but that’s enough. That whole mess with the Bugsters was rough on a lot of families, not just ours. Your mother and I just can’t be around each other anymore, and we need to make the best of things as they are. You understand that, right?”

            “I’m trying to, tou-san, I’m trying,” Kensei answered. “Let’s just focus on making the best curry in the world right now, okay?”

            His father smiled. “I think I can handle that, at least.”

 

XXX

 

            Soichiro Hidenaga stopped in his tracks when he saw what was coming down the stairs at him the next morning.

            Then he smiled.

            “Going to bike to school today, huh?”

            “Yeah,” Kensei replied. “Nothing against the train, but at least this way I’ll get some activity.”

            His father nodded. “Well, try hard at things besides kendo club, okay? You’ve got your whole future to think about. I know that just makes me sound like an old fart, but…”

            “No, tou-san, I know. Yuuma had his whole future too, I know how it important it is to think ahead,” Kensei said and walked the rest of the way downstairs, his father following him outside.

            “See you tonight, Kensei-kun.”

            “See you tonight.”

            They went down the road in opposite directions.

            Neither of them was around when a delivery truck stopped in front of their house and bring out a package with big black letters—GENM—stamped on the return address.

 

XXX

 

            As he locked his bike up, Kensei had a feeling that something big was coming that day. Not that his club was about to be closed down, but something even bigger. He figured the answer was there when he entered his classroom and “NEW STUDENT” was written on the blackboard in giant kanji.

            And sitting in the back, all by herself was the pale girl he’d seen catching her breath on a bus stop bench the day before, wearing the school’s uniform of dark blazer and skirt.

            Kensei stared at her for a second, then when she started to turn to make eye contact with him he looked away and walked over to his own seat. A few minutes later the room had filled up as it always did with chatting students. Then door opened again and Miss Hikomori came in, pinched little smile and thick glasses in place as always.

            “Good morning, students!” she called out, waiting for the scripted reply she’d given them at the beginning of the year.

            “Good morning, Hikomori-sensei!” everyone responded in perfect but bored synch.

            She set down her bag and raised her arm to point at the writing on the board. “As you can see, we have a new student starting today! Mishiranu-san, would like to come up to introduce yourself to the class?”

            “Not really,” came the immediate reply, and Kensei wasn’t surprised to hear it come from the pale girl in the back. Her voice was hollow as she answered.

Miss Hikomori sputtered in surprise, then repeated her question a little more shakily. “Mishiranu-san, would you please come up and introduce yourself to the class?”

“If you insist,” the girl answered. She got up from her seat and walked to the front of the classroom, turned and faced the students. “Hello,” she said flatly, then bowed suddenly and sharply for a second, flinging her hair forward so it draped over the front of her head. Then she leaned back suddenly and it whipped back again. “I am Kiiko Mishiranu. It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” she said as flatly as before.

“Well, that was…pleasant, Mishiranu-san,” the teacher said, looking slightly rattled by the new student’s abrupt introduction. Miss Hikomori sucked in a quick breath and went on, “Well! She’ll need someone to help her learn her way around. Why don’t…Hidenaga-san! You can be her guide after school.”

“I…I guess so,” Kensei answered. It wasn’t as if he had a club meeting that day after all. Kiiko turned suddenly and locked eyes with him, giving the deepest, most probing look he could ever remember. But then she did something that completely confused him. She went back to her desk, picked up her bag and walked to the seat next to Kensei’s. She fixed her eyes on the boy already sitting there, until he got up and walked back to the seat she’d been in at the beginning of class, shooting worried looks over his shoulder at Kiiko.

With the seat open, Kiiko sat down and stared straight ahead, not even looking at Kensei even with making sure she’d gotten the spot next to him. “So…where are you from?” Kensei asked, although he felt a little pathetic not being able to think of anything else to say.

“Far away,” she replied without looking over at him, or having any kind of tone suddenly either. “You probably haven’t heard of my town.”

“Try me,” he said with a slight smile and playful challenge in his voice.

Again she didn’t even look at him as she answered. “Class is starting. We can’t talk now.”

“I guess we can’t,” Kensei said and sat back. Something big was happening to him that day after all.

 

XXX

 

Where was he going? To find something. What was he trying to find? A thing…a very important thing. What was the thing? The goal. To win. If he found it, he and the others would win.

What would they win? Power. What kind of power? What kind of power…he couldn’t remember. But it was power they needed, he remembered that at least.

A mother pushing a baby carriage saw the wild-eyed, unshaven man walking up to her in his tattered coat and pants, and crossed to the other side of the street as fast as she could. The wild-eyed man didn’t even notice her go. She wasn’t the thing he was trying to find, after all. What was he trying to find? Something important. He’d know it when was near it, that was what the others told him.

He staggered on farther, bumping into another man without noticing and continuing on down the sidewalk. “HEY!” the other man yelled in irritation as he recovered from the wild-eyed man running into him. “What do you think you’re doing?” the wild-eyed one didn’t answer, only dragging his feet down the street.

His victim ran over to him, grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “What’s your problem, huh?!” The wild-eyed man giggled, and suddenly his eyes flashed with white light and a weird crackling purple fog seeped out of his mouth.

“Corrupt! Corrupt! Open the breach!...Open the breach! Corrupt! Open…THE BREACH!” the wild-eyed man laughed, his eyes becoming even more wild even as the light faded.

The other man gaped at him for a second, then turned and ran down the street away from him. The wild-eyed man just turned and shuffled the way he’d been going before. That hadn’t been what he was looking for either. But he’d find it…he’d find it soon.

“Open the breach! The breach! Corrupt! CORRUPT!” he laughed like a lunatic.

 

XXX

 

As the final bell rang for the day all of the other student gushed like a stream of water out of the classroom, already talking about everything they could that had nothing to do with school. Kensei looked over at Kiiko, his responsibility for the afternoon, and she was still staring straight ahead like she had for most of the day’s lessons.

Then she turned to Kensei, stood up and picked up her back. “Will you show me around now?” she asked him.

“Yeah, of course,” Kensei said, studying her carefully as he stood up but trying not to look like he was studying her. “Where did you say you were from again?” he asked lightly.

“I didn’t say.”

“No, but you said you’d tell me if I asked later.”

“Technically, I never did.”

Kensei sighed. “Okay, fine. Why don’t we go downstairs and I’ll show you the school?”

Kiiko stood up. Or more like she stood so fast she seemed to _flow_ up. “I’ve already seen the school. Show me the town instead, won’t you? We can get juice before we leave. I have money.”

“Uh…yeah, okay,” Kensei said, taken by surprise by her unexpected generosity. Kiiko just nodded then and strode purposefully out of the classroom. Kensei followed her down to the gymnasium building where a red vending machine he’d seen every day but never really noticed before then was waiting. Two cans dropped into its slot, and Kiiko passed on to him. “Thanks,” Kensei said, looked at her uncertainly for a second, then popped the can. “So, why did you transfer to Anagakuen?” he asked.

“My…family is splitting up. We came here, and they said this was a pretty good school,” Kiiko answered. She didn’t open her can and just watched as Kensei sipped from his.

“I guess I know how that goes,” he muttered.  
            “Oh?” Kiiko said. She looked at him intently, silently prompting him to go on. Well, why not, he thought. Maybe if he told her a little about himself, she’d finally loosen up and say something about herself.

“Well, my parents are getting a divorce. It was a big shock to all of us when my brother died. That happened a while ago now, and my dad thinks Yuuma would want us to move on. My mom thinks if we did, we’d be insulting everything he did when he was alive. She’s even gone to talk at elementary schools a couple times about how he was a hero too, like the Kamen Riders”

Kiiko canted her head. “Oh? Did he do a lot of good things?”

When he heard that Kensei couldn’t help smiling a little. “He was the best baseball player this school ever had. I’ll show you all the trophies if we go back inside. Girls were always following him around everywhere. But then they had that ‘Kamen Rider Chronicle’ thing happen, something like a video game came to life for real and there were monsters running around everywhere…”

“Yes, I heard about that,” Kiiko nodded, sounding a little more casual than Kensei would’ve expected, but he was too caught up in his memories to pay it much attention.

“Well, the police said he was out and tried to help some lady who was about to get killed by one of the monsters. He tried to use one of those Kamen Rider Chronicle cartridges, but he wasn’t strong enough to beat the monster and he…he died. My mom actually still has the cartridge, even though it’s broken now. She says it’s proof of how brave Yuuma was. She even put it in a frame and hung it up on the wall so she always sees it as soon as she wakes up.”

“Really? She sounds very proud of what he did,” Kiiko said.

Kensei took a long drink on his juice, realized he’d finished it and dropped the can in the recycling bin next to the vending machine. He looked over at Kiiko and saw she _still_ hadn’t even opened hers. “I’m not thirsty,” she said as if she could read his mind. “Do you want it?”

            He didn’t answer her. Over her should he spotted a quick flash of light out of the corner of his eye. Shuffling by past the fence around the school was a crazy-looking unshaven man with ragged clothes on. He mumbled something to himself as he walked, then suddenly he whipped around and stared Kensei straight in the eye. The ragged man’s eyes lit up bright white and for a second Kensei felt like he was looking straight into the sun. He gasped and flinched away as his eyes filled with flickering spots.

            While he was distracted by the flash the ragged man smiled like a fiend and easily jumped the fence, landing a few feet away from the two of them. “CORRUPT!” he laughed. His body seemed to flicker for a second, turning blocky…pixelated. “Open the breach!” He staggered closer to them, grinning wider and more crazily than ever.

            “Buddy,” Kensei said as his vision cleared and he managed to focus on the man again. “You better back off. Now.”

            “Open the breach!” the man laughed, then grabbed at them with bony fingers. Kensei clenched his teeth, then slammed a fist into the man’s stomach. He gasped as the wind was knocked out of him, but as he did a small purple cloud of crackling smoke gushed from his mouth. Kensei gasped in surprise as his skin started to tingle where the cloud touched him, then yelped in pain as it started burning against his skin.

            He yanked his arm back and spun suddenly, hooking his leg around the wild-eyed man’s and pulled, yanking the man off his feet. Kensei turned to run back to Kiiko, but she seemed to become a blur as she ran past Kensei instead, then stopped and waved urgently for him to follow.

            For a second Kensei glanced down at the man he’d just knocked flat. The man flickered again then, and as he came back into focus he had changed into something different. Something…terrifying. His clothes had changed, and now he only had on a tiger-striped kilt.

            Then he stood up, seeming to grow and _grow_ until he towered over Kensei’s head, a studded iron club, a tetsubo, _melted out_ of one of his powerful hands. Then as if to complete the transformation a shiny red shell formed over the man’s face and scalp like the color the rest of his skin had turned. A pair of curved horns jabbed out of his forehead and his eyes seemed to turn to two tiny balls of fire in the sockets. Then his jaw stretched downward until his mouth was big enough to swallow Kensei’s head whole. He looked like…an Oni?

The rush of air as the club swung down toward his skull was like a thunderclap, but Kensei was already running after Kiiko as fast as he could go. Behind him he heard the ground crunching but just kept running for all he was worth. Whatever that thing was, it was more than he felt like taking on with what he’d learned in kendo club.

            They ran out the nearest gate and down a corner as they heard the man, or monster or whatever he was crashing through the fence. After another second Kiiko started to slow down, then stopped totally and panted for breath. Kensei took her by the arm and led her out of the street and into the shadows of an alley next a Big Bang Burger. The thing chasing them stomped by and after a minute the loud footsteps disappeared into the distance. Kensei peered out and froze as he saw two-inch-deep footprints gouged in the concrete of the sidewalk where it’d gone just a few feet from them.

            What scared him more, though, was tiny purple blotches he saw in the monster’s footprints. He leaned over for a closer look and his skin crawled as his suspicion was confirmed: the blotches were growing, spreading themselves up onto the sidewalk like some of infection.

            “What do we do now?” Kiiko whispered.

            “I don’t know! Do I look like I know anything about monsters?!” Kensei hissed. “We should probably find a place to hide, or tell the police, or—”

            “GOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOME…” a wheezing voice suddenly interrupted. A chill went up Kensei’s spine as he though he recognized it.

            “Aniki?”

            In front of them, just for a few seconds, appeared the transparent shape of a boy a few years old than the two of them, his features obscured by a cloud seemingly made of squares that faded in and out around him. “POOOOOOWEERRRR…NEEEEEED REEEEEEEAAALL POOOOOOWEEERRRR…” he moaned, but the effort of talking seemed to drain his energy. Before either of them could say anything, he faded out of sight.

            “You saw that too, right?” Kensei asked a second later.

            “Someone said we needed power. Real power,” Kiiko answered him, looking straight at where the ghost had been.

            Kensei took a breath and gripped Kiiko’s hand. “Then I think I know where we need to go.”

 

XXX

 

            Any doubts Kensei had about the meaning of the ghost’s words were gone when he saw the small cardboard package stamped with the ominous GENM logo laying next to his front door. That had been the company that made those video games that came to life, hadn’t it? They’d have plenty of power to give out, wouldn’t they?

            Hopefully more than Yuuma had…

            After making sure no one was following them Kensei waved Kiiko inside and kicked the package through the door, then thought he probably shouldn’t be kicking things around that had “real power.” He locked it, then let out a long sigh. The tension of being chased by a monster seemed to leak out of Kensei’s body through his feet. “Um, can I get you something to drink?” he asked.

            “Shouldn’t you open that box?” Kiiko reminded him.

            “Oh, yeah, I guess I should,” he answered. He was holding it tight to his chest, but realized in the back of his mind he was kind of hoping they hadn’t really been attacked by a psycho with the face of an Oni, and that there wasn’t proof that someone had seen this coming in his hands.

            He tore through the tape with his fingernails, earning himself a papercut on one fingertip, but froze and stared at what he saw inside. Lying in the middle of the packing paper was a neon green box with a bright pink lever over the front and two slots like a toaster off to the side. Pulling back on the lever Kensei revealed a little decal on the inside that said “GAMER DRIVER,” and showed a picture it’d been hiding of someone with giant eyeballs wearing light samurai-like armor, a skewed crescent attached to the brow of his helmet. As soon as Kensei let go of the lever it snapped back into place.

            It wasn’t the only thing in the box. Next to it was a red plastic cartridge with one side molded into a grip like a pistol, with a start button for where the thumb would be. Sticking out of the top was a clear rectangular circuit board. It looked just like the one Yuuma had tried to use to fight back against the Bugster.

            On the front was a label showing a figure in red and black samurai armor with a screaming demonic face on the front of his horned helmet and wielding a pair of swords, one long blade above his and one short blade while screaming with rage. Written next to him were the words “En En Chambara.”

            “Isn’t that what those Kamen Riders had? The things that gave them their power?” Kiiko asked.

            “I think so,” Kensei answered. “All I really knew about what they did was to run if I saw a monster. They said on the news not to play that Chronicle game, but I hadn’t been playing video games in forever by then anyway.

            “But…they said the people who died in that game could be brought back,” Kensei went on. “At least they thought so. If they figured that out, they still haven’t told anybody.”

            “That was your brother just now, though, right? You said he was one of the people who died playing that game,” Kiiko pointed out to him. “Something must’ve changed, then?”

            It had to, Kensei admitted to himself. If somehow Yuuma had managed to talk to him and probably send this machine to him, something had to have gone wrong, those monsters had to be coming back. And if Yuuma had really made sure sent this to him…did that mean the Kamen Riders who had always taken care of those monsters before now couldn’t anymore, for some reason?

            Then, all of a sudden the ground shook, sending them half an inch into the air. A second later it shook again but he heard the sound of metal caving in and glass crunching, and guessed somebody’s car had just been smashed. It had to be the Red Oni, but had he tracked them down somehow, or was he just nearby? It didn’t really matter, though. Somehow he had to keep that monster from finding this was where he lived and letting the monster ruin his family any more than its kind already had. Kensei took a breath, shut his eyes and picked up the Gamer Driver and the weird little cartridge it had been sent with.

            “I can’t believe this is happening.”

            “ _Do_ you believe?” Kiiko asked him.

            “I gotta believe,” Kensei answered breathlessly.

            “Turn it on,” Kiiko replied.

            He looked down at the Gamer Driver again and saw a pink button stamped “POWER” across the top, and pressed it with his thumb.

            “ **REFORMAT**. **Initiated,** ” said a blaring voice from the Driver.

            “…reformat?”

            Suddenly his fingertips on his hand started to itch, and then to Kensei’s horror tiny bits of drifted away as tiny dots. Within seconds it had spread up his arm. He opened his mouth to scream but the entire half of his body had already dissolved away. He expected to feel pain, but all he felt was a dull tingling as his body continued to break down into a stream of colored dots. As he watched though, he realized they were actually small cubes. _Pixels,_ the word entered his mind from somewhere. Everything went dark as his face broke down…

            …then he could see where the stream of pixels was going, and his hand reforming at the end. Then his arm, and then the rest of his body. The weird green and pink box traveled along the stream of dots until it came to rest in his other reformed hand just where it had been before. A second later his body was complete again as if nothing had happened at all.

            Had it? Something felt different in him now, like he could see more clearly suddenly, and could count the stripes in the wood of his front door. His fingers tingled at the faint power in the En En Chambara game waiting to be sparked into something incredible.

            Without saying a word he went out the back door.

            “Hey!” Kiiko called out, a little surprised at being left behind.

            Kensei stopped by the back door and gave her a steely look. “I’m on a mission right now,” he replied, and walked out.

 

XXX

 

            A neighbor’s dog barked uselessly at the Oni monster, whose skin had taken on the color of his face. He raised his tetsubo and the animal yipped and ran away, and he held out the club at arm’s length, smashing into the cement wall that blocked off the back of a row of houses from the street. Then he started running, tearing up giant footprints with his massive stomps and digging a rough gash in the wall with the tip of his club.

            A young couple saw the monster coming and ran down another street. The Red Oni spun with his weapon held out, smashing over two streetlights and ripping the roof of a parked car. He threw back his shiny red head and laughed a demonic, piercing laugh that shattered windows half a block away and sprayed purple flecks from his that started to spread as soon as they hit the ground. “CORRUPT! **CORRUPT!!!** ” he screamed.

            “Not **my** neighborhood!” someone shouted. Red Oni stopped his spinning and laughing, and turned to see Kensei standing down the street, wearing the Gamer Driver on the front of a belt around his waist. “Stop this, or—”

            “Or you’ll have to make me, little Rider!” Red Oni sneered at him.

            “I guess I will,” Kensei whispered. Kensei gripped En En Chambara, and squeezed the button on the side with his thumb.

            “ **En EN…ChamBARA!** ” the tiny device yelled, and Kensei almost dropped it in surprise at what happened next. Giant colorful coins sprayed out from the top and landed on their edges all over the street. Above him a giant screen appeared reading “EN EN CHAMBARA” in fiery letters with the demon-faced warrior on the label next to it, showing silhouettes of soldiers with swords and spears fighting in fields of fireFmetch. Kensei guessed what he was supposed to do with the game, and turned it upside down and shoved the clear circuit board into the first slot on the Gamer Driver.

            “ **Let’s Game! Metcha Game! Mucha Game! What’s Your Name?!** ”

            “What…?” Kensei asked, left speechless partly by the bombastic introduction the Gamer Driver was making, but also by the feeling of awesome strength starting to fill his body as a ring of icons showing masked faces with gigantic eyes appeared around him. Without really thinking he reached out to touch the one with a skewed crescent attached to the forehead of its mask.

            As if answering his question it yelled out, “ **UTSURA!!!...I’m a Kamen Rider!** ” Then the light covering him faded, and Kensei had transformed.

            “Something…doesn’t feel right,” he said to himself, and the Oni laughed. Kensei was indeed quite a sight; his body was covered in strips of black and white armor, but stubby arms and legs stuck out of  a masked face with googly yellow eyes behind giant goggles that had a thin crescent ornament stuck to the forehead and tilted slightly to the side. Across his chest was a piece of armor with four colorful buttons—yellow, red, green and blue—arranged in a diamond pattern on the left side while on the right was a long line of small colored marks like a video game’s health bar. It skewed upward above two square icons, one of a long katana and the other of two swords with shorter blades.

            “Let me squash you flatter,” Red Oni sniggered, spraying those flecks of purple that started spreading wherever they landed. He ran at Kensei, or now Utsura, whirling his club over his head. Inside the mask, a red point of light appeared on Red Oni’s middle, and as he came close enough to start bringing his weapon down on Utsurua’s head the new Rider threw a punch that connected with the target he saw on Red Oni’s body with an incredible **CRACK**. Red Oni stumbled backward and almost dropped his weapon, coughing and dribbling more purple all over the ground.

            Utsura had been in enough mock combat to knew to press his advantage when his opponent was knocked off-balance. A string of glowing letters appeared in his vision, “OPEN INVENTORY > GASHACON ZASHI.” He held out his hand and a ring formed in the air like just before he transformed, but with only two icons appearing this time. He touched the first one, of a short-bladed sword, and as he pulled back his hand the weapon had appeared in it.

            But he sputtered behind his mask as he saw it; the thing looked like a toy. It was a wakizahi, a samurai’s short sword, but built into the hilt was a boxy crossbar with a bright blue button marked A and a red button next to it marked B. The blade was bright green.

            It was all he had to work with, though. He ran and shoulder-checked Red Oni, then spun and slashed across the spot where he’d hit the monster before, lit up with a bright red spot again, but his attack was slow and awkward thanks to his bulky shape. Utsura’s vision flashed red as Red Oni yelled in pain and anger, and an upward arrow appeared right before the tetsubo came down on his head. Utsura dodged to the side but he was a second too slow and Red Oni’s weapon clipped his shoulder.

            Before he could recover Red Oni’s giant fist crashed into his face and for a second his vision filled with static. He cried out as Red Oni bit down on his head, crunching on the armor with his huge jaws, then actually lifted Utsura off the ground with his teeth and tossed him eighty feet down the street where he smashed through the wall obstructing a family’s backyard.

            Utsura groaned and tried to roll onto his back to get up again, but his bulky form and stubby arms and legs made it hard. As he struggled the first third of the marks on his health bar flared and disappeared. There had to be something he was missing. This wasn’t how it worked for those other Kamen Riders, he was sure they hadn’t looked like this when he saw them on the news.

            “Wonder what pounded Kamen Rider tastes like,” Red Oni mused, licking his tetsubo with a two foot-long tongue. Utsura groaned, then stopped as more typing appeared in front of him. “PULL BACK LEVER.” He managed to hook a stubby finger behind the top of his Driver’s lever, then pulled it open. This time it didn’t snap back, and a weird feeling came over Utsura’s body. “ **Kenjutsu Level 2** ,” the Driver said.

            He blasted into the air like a missile and the arms and legs shot off from his awkward armor, leaving just the head. Then his body uncurled from behind it, and stood up in a new less restrictive suit of armor, yellow in color with black circuit-like patterns running up the torso, arms and legs. Plates of thick red armor attached to his hips, around his legs, on the backs of his arms and onto his shoulders, forming around the chestplate with the colored buttons and health bar. A helmet with sloping sides and a tilted crescent on the front came spinning through the air and landed on top of his head, contrasting the giant googly eyes his mask still had, completing his new transformation.

A booming noise echoed down the street. A second later it came again, and Utsura looked over to see the noise come one more time as Red Oni made a slow, sarcastic clap. “Your corpse will look a little less stupid now!” he jeered and whirled his tetsubo through the air again. Utsura clutched the Gashacon Zashi which looked so tiny and weak in comparison to his opponent’s weapon, but without all that armor on he knew he could move again, and the lessons from kendo practice were already coming back…

He waited for just the right moment to attack, Red Oni spinning club through the air so fast Utsura was almost blown back a step by the rushing air. Then Red Oni stopped and raised it like a baseball bat, and Utsura flinched back in what looked like fear. Red Oni sneered and swung with all of his great strength.

Right before it could hit him Utsura suddenly reached out and grabbed the head of the tetsubo. Its studs dug into his hand and he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold it for long, but already a blip had appeared on Red Oni’s unprotected side and Utsura swung his short sword in a fierce arc that connected in a shower of sparks.

Red Oni howled in agony, more purple spit spraying from his mouth and a sheet of it splattering Utsura. His skin crawled inside his armor at the idea of that horrible stuff spreading over his body, but to his surprise and relief it started burning off as soon as it touched him. This armor could protect him from whatever the purple filth was?

But he was distracted just a second too long and Red Oni kicked him hard in his lightly-armored middle. Utsura was knocked off his feet but in midair he tucked his sword parallel to his chest and folded his arms up so when he landed he rolled on his side to ride out the force of Red Oni’s kick. As he got his feet underneath him half of his health bar was gone, but he was sure he was starting to get the hang of this.

“You’re in trouble now, little Rider,” Red Oni sneered, pointing at Utsura’s depleted health bar with his weapon. Utsura just clenched his sword and went into a defensive stance, not going to make the amateur mistake of letting his opponent bait him. Red Oni snapped his jaws open and closed a few times but when Utsura refused to make the first move, he growled in anger and the fire in his eyes started to glow brighter, his horns growing even longer. He snarled a word in a language no human was meant to make and a streak of fire ran up his tetsubo. A tingle ran up Utsura’s spine as he saw his enemy prepare to go all-out.

Utsura also knew that would make it easier to catch him in a mistake.

Red Oni screamed and charged at him but as he tried to jab Utsura with the end of the weapon, the Rider suddenly jumped up, one foot touched the flaming club for just a second and a mark disappeared off his health bar as it burned into his leg. But then the jumped and kicked Red Oni hard on the chin. The monster reeled for a second and as Utsura came down from  his jump he slashed at the red shell covering Red Oni’s head with his sword, cracking it down the middle.

For a second Red Oni stopped in his berserk charge, touching the crack Utsura’s attack had made and causing a few shiny red chips to fall off, revealing soft skin underneath. He screamed and charged Utsura again, swinging so fast Utsura was almost buffeted back. Utsura jumped back as Red Oni closed in, planted his foot on the side of a wall and vaulted off with all of his strength, going high into the air at an angle. He came down with his armored boot aimed at the crack on Red Oni’s head and slammed the heel down as hard as he could. Then his other heel, and in seconds he was drumming his feet so fasts his legs became a red and yellow blur.

Red Oni yelled and swatted his attacker away, flames singing at Utsura’s armor and another fourth of his health bar disappearing. But as Utsura landed in a crouch another message appeared in his view, and he knew what to do. He pounded the B button on his sword, the green blade lighing up starting at the hilt and climbing higher until he’d hit it enough times for it to get to the tip. Then he slipped En En Chambara into a slot on the side of the hilt, and slapped the A button. The sword in his hand flickered for a second and then Utsura held another one like it in his other hand.

“ **En En…Critical FINISH!!!** ” the Gamer Driver yelled and the glow around Utsura’s blades turned into a flickering green flame.

“You think I should be scared now that you have _two_ little swords?” Red Oni spat as he shouldered his tetsubo for one last charge.

“I think I’m giving you an honorable end,” Utsura replied. “Even if you don’t deserve one.” Red Oni screamed and swung at Utsura, who jumped high and slashed down with both swords at the vulnerable crack on the top of the monster’s head. Giant glowing blades extended from his swords and cleaved right through Red Oni’s body.

The monster went totally still and silent for a second. Then his head started to disintegrate into a stream of pixels that floated away into the sky, and the rest of his body flowed away a few seconds later. Then once Red Oni was gone the swelling patches of purple all over the ground and walls disintegrated and flowed into the sky after him.  Above Utsura’s head appeared giant red and yellow letters: GAME CLEAR, and just next to them was a huge image of his En En Chambara game.

Utsura sighed and lowered his swords, glad it was finally over. But then he heard, “You barely survived a tutorial battle! Why would they send _you_ a Gamer Driver?!” a deep voice demanded in disbelief. Inside, Utsura groaned and turned to where the voice had come from, expecting another fight.

Facing him, though, was someone else wearing armor like his, with giant googly eyes behind his goggles as well a chestplate with a health bar just like Utsura’s, except the icons underneath showed a wand and an upside down star inside of a circle. Over a green suit with black circuitry lines Utsura’s own he had on a wine-colored robe covered in weird zodiac-like symbols of different metallic sheens. The hood was pulled up over his head, and in one hand he held a neon green wand with a ball of shimmering energy on the tip. Probably why he wasn’t wearing a Gamer Driver himself.

“If you’re hoping I’m in the mood for another round, I’m going to have to disappoint you,” Utsura told him.

“Oh, I’m not here to pick a fight,” the other Kamen Rider replied. “I’ll do you a favor and tell you that if you can barely handle a tutorial boss like the Red Oni, you’d better just give up now.”


	2. Here Comes a New Challenger!

**(Sorry about the mess, this chapter was re-edited to cut out confusing back-and-forth between a dialogue scene and battle scene.)**

 

            “A _what_?” Utsura asked, mystified for a second by what the other Rider had just said. “A _tutorial boss_??”

            The hooded Rider twitched for a second as if startled by the question. “Yeah, the Red Oni’s the main opponent in the tutorial for En En Chambara. Haven’t you even _played_ that game??”

            “No,” Utsura replied. “I haven’t really played video games for a few years…wait, what’s it to you, anyway??”

            “They gave a Gamer Driver to someone _who doesn’t play_ _games_??”

            “ _Who_ did?!” Utsura demanded, losing his patience with all the mystery. “Who are you? What do you know about all this?!”

            The other Rider flinched back from Utsura’s loud demand like he hadn’t expected a violent retort. He coughed into his fist, then said, “It’s not the time for answers yet! We will meet again, I am sure!”

            Utsura ran at him. “Oh no you don’t! You show up and sound like a smartass, now you’re just running away?! What do you know??”

            The other Rider unsurprisingly didn’t answer. Instead he waved his arm in front of him and a ring of small icons with dark silhouettes in them spun out of nowhere around him. He touched one that looked like a thick-legged chicken.

            “ **Open: Cruiser. Cocobobo!** ” As Utsura watched a wireframe image of a bird like an ostrich but the size of a car flowed up from the ground in front of the other Rider. Color flowed up its body next, solidifying it into a white-feathered bird with scaly legs and tiny undeveloped wings that turned and almost seemed to smile at Utsura. A saddled materialized on its back that the other Rider jumped onto and as he held up his hands a set of black reins appeared too, fastened with an emblem the same as the colorful buttons on the Riders’ chestplates.

            “Until we meet again!” the Rider said and whipped the reins. The bird gave a cry that sounded like “Kwek!” and raced down the street at blinding speed. In another second it was out of sight. Utsura sighed and lowered his swords, knowing he’d never catch up to it on foot.

            And he thought his life was complicated enough with his family breaking up.

 

XXX

 

            When he was sure no one was around to see he pulled En En Chambara out of the slot in his belt. His helmet broke down into pixels and streamed bit by bit into the clear circuit panel on top of the game. Kensei slid the back door of the house open and leaned in to make sure neither of his parents were home yet. There was no sign of them, but Kiiko was sitting on the kitchen counter staring at the door like she’d been waiting for him to come in that way. With all the other weird things he’d been through that day, especially from her, somehow he wasn’t surprised at all anymore.

            “It was that monster who chased us before,” Kensei explained. “I beat him, he’s gone.”

            “Yeah,” was all Kiiko said.

            “Did you know I did, somehow?” Kensei asked quietly, tired of all the weirdness in his day.

            “No,” she said simply. “I didn’t know you _did_. But I knew you _would_.”

            Kensei just walked over to a chair at the table and sat down heavily on it. “Could you not sit on the counter, please? My dad will get the wrong idea if he walks in and sees you like that.”

            “What idea will he get?” she asked, and Kensei looked over at her from the faint sound of curiosity in her voice. He hadn’t heard her talk with any kind of emotion at all the whole day.

            “He’ll think I’m making new friends.”

            “We can’t be friends?”

            Kensei sighed and leaned back in his chair, shutting his eyes. “I don’t think so. Not if you won’t give me a straight answer about anything.”

            “I don’t know any more about monsters or why you got that game in the mail than you do,” Kiiko replied. A second passed and she continued, “Does that mean we can be friends?”

            “How about this? Let me give you my cell number. That way you can call me if anything else weird happens,” Kensei offered. Kiiko nodded, and held up a shiny new-looking smartphone that seemed as if it had appeared in her hand just a second before she held it up. Were Kensei’s eyes playing tricks on him after everything that just happened?

            After she’d logged his number, Kiiko asked, “Are we friends now? Isn’t exchanging numbers something you only do with your friends?”

            “You talk almost like you don’t know what one is,” Kensei replied.

            Kiiko just looked him straight in the eye, and said nothing.

 

XXX

 

            She was still saying nothing the next day at school, but Kiiko was glancing Kensei’s way every now and then through most of the day, which surprised him a little when he caught her doing it. The day before she’d seemed like a robot, like she never talked to a real person before in her life. Now she was insisting they were friends because they traded phone numbers?

            At lunch Kensei went outside to get some peace. As he bit into it, his phone rang in his pocket. He froze for a second, afraid another monster had showed up and attacked Kiiko, but the name above the number was a giant UNKNOWN, so he put his phone away and ignored it.

            On the way back to his classroom he saw the hall blocked by a group of girls, all facing away from him and waving around pencils, pens and pieces of paper. The girls pushed back and forth, and for a second Kensei saw something through them that didn’t surprise him at all.

            Sitting on a bench, ignoring all of them, was a slender boy with a small heart-shaped face, his hair done in a fashionable cut Kensei couldn’t name, that came down and covered one half of his face. The air in front of him almost seemed to gleam with his charm. Kensei knew his name: Yoshoku Kasuga, the school pretty boy.

            And he looked absolutely _bored_ even as the air was filled with screams of, “Yoshoku-sama, please can I have your autograph?!” and “Yoshoku…please go on a date with me after school!”

            Yoshoku just gave a hollow sigh and got up. “Is something _exciting_ ever going to happen to me?” he asked and walked in Kensei’s direction, completely ignoring the mob of fawning girls who followed after him. Kensei just stared. What about that was anything a girl would be interested in? Then again, the last girl he’d had a serious conversation with had been Kiiko, and “flirting” wasn’t exactly the word for it.

            “You know, Kasuga-san, most guys would do anything to have all those girls crazy about them,” Kensei said lightly.

            Suddenly Yoshoku whipped around to face him, tossing his hair in the air and fixing both eyes on Kensei at once. The effect was instantaneous, and Kensei found he couldn’t move. Yoshoku had the brightest, clearest eyes Kensei had ever seen before. He couldn’t move or look away.

            “I’m not _most guys_ , I’m _me_ ,” Yoshoku answered the point. “And I don’t have to answer to _anybody_ for that. Especially not some loser who’s the only one who still cares about _the most pathetic club in school_.”

            That shocked Kensei out of the trance he’d been in. “If I’m such a loser, how do you know so much about me?...Was that you, last night?”

            Yoshoku dismissively looked away, tossing his hair in front of him again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

            “Yoshoku-sama, you’re too COOL!” some girl in the mob exclaimed, and he just sighed in annoyance. He pushed past Kensei and then the mob of admiring girls followed after him, slamming Kensei against the wall. But before Yoshoku was completely out of sight, he turned his head and for just a second he seemed to lock eyes with Kensei. His gaze locked with Kensei’s, and as he looked back, Kensei had a feeling Yoshoku knew something he wasn’t saying. Was he waiting for a better time, maybe?

            And was that the back of a blue cartridge like Kensei’s sticking out of his pocket as he disappeared around the corner…?

           

            XXX

 

            The rest of the day, Kensei couldn’t focus on class, and instead he spent hours trying to remember what class Yoshoku was in so he could get there as soon as classes let out and confront him about the cartridge in his pocket. But on the other hand, if Kensei tried to get in the other boy’s face, Yoshoku’s admirers would probably rip him apart.

            “Dasao-san, maybe you’d like to repeat what I just said for the rest of the class who might’ve missed it?” the teacher asked suddenly, and Kensei started to panic before realizing he wasn’t the one being called out. In the back row sat a scarecrow-thin boy with glasses thick enough to stop a bullet, and as Kensei looked back at him with the rest of the class, he was sure he saw a light like an LED screen going off as the boy set something inside his desk. Nobody else said anything, not even the teacher, and Kensei guessed he must’ve been the only one who noticed. Had being “reformatted” done that to him? What else had it done…?

            “Fine, if you say so,” the boy replied, a little mockingly. “Glassblowing involves three furnaces, and the first contains a crucible of molten glass. The second’s used to reheat it in between working it into shape. The third is used to cool it over a period of hours or days and make it take on its final shape.”

            He smirked. “And that’s so important for us to know in an age like this, isn’t it? So many of us are going to go on to blow out bottles for a living. I’m going to have my own laboratory as soon as I’m out of university, and I’ll be making things a lot more impressive than bottles in there!”

            “Shut up, Dasao!” roared the biggest boy in class, clenching a fist. “You only get to do that if you live to get out of _this_ school!” The boy who’d just been bragging jumped back in surprise at the forceful threat, his arrogant act totally broken. A drop of sweat ran down his forehead and over his long, pointed nose.

            “That’s enough out of _both_ of you!” the teacher yelled. Dasao sat back down, chastened, then he gasped in surprise as he looked back at Kensei and saw the suspicious look on his face. Dasao looked away as fast as he could.

 

XXX

 

As another day wrapped up, Kensei got ready to go home. Kiiko blocked the door before he could leave, though. “You never showed me around like you were supposed to,” she pointed out to him.  
            “Well, you never said a thing to me that explained anything. You want a friend, start with that, okay?”

            “…I will.”

            Kensei nodded. “Good. Let me now if anything happens before then, okay?” He tried to walk around her when his phone rang. It was the same UNKNOWN number as before, and he clicked the decline button on the small screen. He hadn’t even put it back in his pocket before it started to ring again, the same number and same UNKNOWN stamp on his screen. Again he clicked it off, and again it rang almost immediately. Cautiously, he waited for it to ring three times then pressed the accept button and leaned it against his ear, but let the caller talk first.

            “Is this Kensei Hidenaga?” an unassuming male voice asked on the other end.

            “Maybe. Who’s this?”

            “My name is Kazumono, I’m a technician working at GENM Corporation. Are you the one who was sent the Gamer Driver along with En En Chambara?”

            “Yeah, and if you want trouble, buddy, I’ll be happy to help you!” Kensei whispered into his phone, having just about had it with all the mystery he was having to deal with, what sounded like it was about to turn into a threat wasn’t welcome.

            “You misunderstand me, Hidenaga-san,” Kazumono said, heading him off. “There’s a serious problem facing us, and I’m worried you might be one of the only ones who can deal with it. Would you be willing to talk with me this afternoon? We can send a driver to pick you up right away.”

            It was a minute before Kensei answered him. “What kind of problem? Or let me guess, you can’t tell me on the phone.”

            Another minute passed before Kazumono answered. “You’re right, I can’t. But maybe to help convince you, I could tell you the person our system says sent you that package was named Yuuma Hidenaga. We looked into who that is, maybe if you come over to talk about this we could reach a clearer understanding of how he managed it.”

            Kensei choked on a breath at the mention of his brother. He gasped, “Is he working for you?”

            Kazumono only repeated his question. “Will you talk to me in person, Hidenaga-san?”

            His throat completely dry, Kensei answered, “Yes, I will.”

            Again a moment of silence passed. “Excellent. Where should our driver meet you?”

 

XXX

 

            He didn’t realize he’d been overheard.

            Parts of it.

            Leaning against the wall just outside the classroom was Doku Dasao, the nerdy boy who’d been chewed out back in class. He scowled, realizing he’d miss the chance for the confrontation he’d been hoping for. Especially with the new girl walking out of the classroom and down the stairs with Kensei Hidenaga. He had to find out who she was…it had to be something connected to what was going on. And _he_ was going to be the one who found out what it was. _Before_ Hidenaga.

            But even as he followed after them, he knew he was never going to get a chance to see whatever they were about to. He looked out the stairwell window and saw Kensei and Kiiko were already outside the school gates, and a shiny black limousine was waiting for them. Whoever had called had obviously been counting on them saying yes to whatever had been said. Well, maybe it was Doku’s day to be left behind.

            Well, he wasn’t the only one who had power, and of the ones who had power, Doku Dasao was the one who knew how to use it best.

            All of a sudden an alarm klaxon started going off inside his bag. Doku jumped, then reached inside and fumbled around for a minute until he hit something that turned it off. He tucked the end of a pink and green wand back into his bag again before anyone saw it.

It was time for him to go.

 

XXX

 

            The chauffeur parked the limousine at an executive parking spot outside of a tall building with a square pink logo on the side reading “GENM CORP.” The same pink as decorated Kensei’s Gamer Driver. The chauffeur flashed a card at an electronic lock in front of a door that actually had security guards standing inside whose hands went to the grips of their guns until the chauffeur flashed held up something that must’ve assured them that he had a very important reason to be bringing a pair of teens there.

            Endless twists and turns through halls followed, up and down stairs, and after a little while Kensei was sure they were being led around to make sure they could only find their way through this place with help. He looked over at Kiiko to see if she had anything to say, but she was just staring intently at their guide’s back, following wherever he led.

            Eventually they came to another door with another pair of armed guards outside, but also standing outside it was one of the most forgettable-looking men Kensei had ever seen. He was tall, but not too tall. His face had nothing remarkable about it at all, not a stray whisker on his cheeks or chin, and his haircut was perfectly symmetrical. He had on a long white smock and the name badge hanging from the front pocket had “KAZUMONO” stamped on it.

            “Hidenaga-san, I presume?” he said in a totally forgettable but polite voice. Kiiko nodded for him. “Ah, and you brought a guest, I see. May I ask who this is? I was only intending to invite _you_.”

            “Well, she just joined my class yesterday, and the same day I got this,” he said, holding up his Gamer Driver, “And then we got attacked by a monster. Kind of suspicious, isn’t it? I mean, maybe it was after her.”

            Kazumono looked Kiiko over, cupping his chin and furrowing his brow. “Very strange, but I can’t say I’ve ever met the young lady. A monster, though…that’s worrying. You’d better come in, then we can try to figure out the whole story.”

            The guards opened the doors behind Kazumono, but before Kensei followed him, Kiiko squeezed his arm. “You don’t trust me,” she said simply, not upset or agitated, but stating a fact.

            He raised an eyebrow and shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know a single thing about you, Mishiranu-san. You said one nice thing to me since we met each other, that you knew I would beat that monster. _Do_ you know anything about what’s going on?”

            “…no. I honestly don’t,” she said after a moment. “But I want to help, if I can.”

            It was a start, he supposed, and smiled gently. “All right, let’s go talk to this guy.”

            Kiiko smiled, and then, strangely, hooked her arm through Kensei’s as they walked into the lab. His eyes went wide, and blushed a little at the close contact. Kiiko’s face was blank.

 

XXX

 

            A blue color was already starting to show through his skin, and his head tightened as a shiny shell formed around it. Two long horns pushed themselves up out of his forehead, peeking out through the long mop of hair that hung to his waist grew up over the shell covering his head. And his arms trembled violently before something oozed out of his palm, a whip made of long white bones strung together with a hooked tip. The only thing on his slender frame was a tiger skin kilt.

            “Another Bugster already?” called out a high voice. The blue monster whirled around and had to shield his eyes from the intense light reflecting off the giant eyeglasses of the teenage boy facing him down. “And another weak low-level boss from a lame-ass samurai game. What, did Red Oni go cry to his big brother after some big bully beat him up?”

            “That’s pretty big talk coming from a skinny little punk,” the Blue Oni replied with a sneer on his hideously lengthened jaws. He swept his whip back and forth across the ground, making a weird clattering sound.

            “A skinny punk with one of _these_?” Doku Dasao said and raised a dark green device gripped in his hand with a clear circuit board on top. On the side was a wizard in a hooded purple robe next to the logo TADDLE CRAFT. Colorful coins with silhouettes of a faceless man on them sprayed out of the top, flying off in all directions and landing on their sides wherever they landed. Over his head appeared a giant screen with the words in flowing rune-like letters above a hooded wizard, the jewel in his wand glowing with power.

In his other hand he held up a neon green plastic wand with a pink plastic ball on the tip and a dial on the side of the same bright color. On the side was a brightly colored decal saying GAMER CEPTA. “Henshin!” he yelled and slid the clear circuit panel into a slot on the back of the wand. A ring of masked faces appeared spinning around him and he slapped one wearing a hood with the tip of the wand.

            “ **Taddle Craft!... Let’s Game! Metcha Game! Mucha Game! What’s Your Name?!** ” a loud voice roared from the wand. Thick black and white armor appeared on his body but he pulled the pink dial on the side of the wand down to the bottom and they immediately popped off and went spinning away. “ **Arcana Level 2!** ”

Dark green armor, broken up by intricate black lines weaving themselves together into Celtic-like shapes, formed itself on Doku’s body. A purple robe with mystical symbols scattered all over its back appeared over his other armor, contrasting starkly with armor on his feet that looked weirdly like track shoes. Giant cartoony eyes lit up in his mask and the bulb on the wand flickered with tiny arcs of pink power as his transformation completed.

            “ **I’m a Kamen Rider!!** ” the Cepta called out, having transformed too into a white wand with an ornament on the tip shaped like a bird with its wings spread and a pair of buttons, A and B, colored green and blue on the side.

He tipped the edge of his hood back slight. “Kamen Rider Rune,” He introduced himself. “Remember that name for when they ask who sent you to hell!”

            Blue Oni just smirked and lashed his whip at the Kamen Rider’s feet, the bones stretching out on a thin black wiree as the tip of the weapon ripped into the street. Rune jumped back suddenly in surprise. Blue Oni smirked. “You can’t talk a monster to death, Rider. Not even _another weak, low-level boss_ like me. The flaming idiot was always the pushover in our family.”

            Rune pressed a button on the side of his Gamer Cepta, which announced, “ **Stage Select**.” A ring of square icons appeared around him, one showing a bombed-out ruin of a city, a rocky white cliff next to the ocean, and the one he hit with the Cepta was a scene of wooden huts as a dragon flew by in the sky. A wave of flickering pixels shot out around them, changing the city street they were standing in into that primitive village. A dragon even flew by in the sky, spraying a blast of fire from its mouth but paying the two no attention as they prepared to fight.

            “Good thing I don’t have to,” Rune muttered to himself and turned the dial on his wand to make a picture of three small fireballs appear in a black window near the top. “Have a taste of _this_!” he yelled before the first fireball shot from the tip of his wand.

 

XXX

 

            Kensei laid out the Gamer Driver and En En Chambara on a table at Kazumono’s request. The technician picked up the Driver and pressed down on the pink power button on the top a few times, but it stayed down as if locked in place. He even got out some kind of tool with a spring on the end he stuck into the button’s niche and tried to shake it loose, but still it wouldn’t move.

 **“** Just like I was afraid,” he sighed. “You’ve already used it and been reformatted, haven’t you?”

            “Why don’t we start with that?” Kensei suggested, a little anxiety sounding in his voice. “What the hell does that mean, I was ‘reformatted’?”

            Kazumono shrugged. “Nothing bad, I promise. The previous Kamen Riders, the ones you saw on the news, they had to have special surgery to be able to use the Drivers safely. The one that was sent to you is a next generation model, Hidenaga-san. The reformatting process does the same thing as that surgery, make it safe for its owner to use it, while also doing them a few other favors like increasing sensory acuity and reflexes. It also locks its functions to that user, so that it can’t be stolen.”

            Kiiko ran her fingers her hair thoughtfully. “If that’s next generation from the ones the other Kamen Riders have, then that should mean the game Kensei used to change is better too,” she stated.

            “Unfortunately…no,” Kazumono said, sounding apologetic.

            “No? That doesn’t make any sense,” she replied.

            He held up his hands placatingly. “The work on the games, the Rider Gashats they’re called, was done by a man named Kuroto Dan that was ultimately supposed to make him all-powerful. But he disappeared recently, and somehow most of the data concerning Rider Gashats went missing around the same time. Our team is working around the clock trying to find out how to improve the power of the Gashats, but it’s a lot to have to learn all over again. And as much as I hate to admit it, Kuroto Dan _was_ a genius.”

            Kensei frowned and held up his hand. “Okay, now it’s my turn to ask a question. Why do you _need_ to research that? What about the other Kamen Riders? Shouldn’t they still have all their stuff that’s a lot more powerful than this?”

            At that question Kazumono’s face went totally impassive, like that was the one he’d been most afraid of having to answer, and Kensei’s stomach tightened at what he was about to hear. “We hope they do…wherever they are.”

            “What the hell does that mean?” Kensei demanded.

            “I think you already know,” Kazumono answered, and indeed he did, but the technician went on anyway. “They’ve disappeared. The hospital lab where they treated Bugster victims has no record of them coming back over the last few days. Even Taiga Hanaya’s clinic is locked and empty. We can’t reach them: their phones read as nonexistent when we try to call. Worse, the Proto Gashats that contain the data for the Kamen Rider Chronicle victims are also gone.”

            The room went quite at the implication sank in. The previous Kamen Riders had saved the day before, but sometimes only barely. If they were gone, and their full power had to be discovered all over again, things were bad.

            Kazumono set his hands on the table in front of him. “Since it seems like I’ve answered your questions, why don’t you answer some of mine?”

            The room was quiet as Kazumono got out a tablet and held it up for Kensei and Kiiko to see. On it were three shipping addresses; one was Kensei’s, and next to it read “Sent by Yuuma Hidenaga.” The other addresses he thought he recognized as local, but wasn’t sure where exactly. The first set of names were “Sent by Hiromi Dasao to Doku Dasao,” and the second said “Futaba Kasugo to Yoshoku Kasuga.”

            “Yoshoku? Why…?” Kensei mumbled, not wanting to accept somebody like the punk who’d brushed him off earlier had been sent power items just like he had. But, if Yuuma thought Kensei deserved some, then who’s say this person didn’t see a reason for Yoshoku to have his own?

            “We know who Yuuma Hidenaga is. Do you have any idea who these other people are?” Kazumono asked.

            “Doku Dasao, Yoshoku Kasuga. They’re kids at my school. I must’ve run into one of them last night. After I beat the Red Oni somebody in a suit like mine showed up and tried to make fun of me,” Kensei explained, stroking his chin. “When I told him to tell me what was going on though, he made this giant ostrich or chicken or something appear and he rode away on it. What did it say it was called…?”

            “A Cocobobo?” Kazumono offered.

            “Yeah, that’s it!” Kensei exclaimed. “I guess you guys made the game that had that bird in it, huh?”

            For the first time since they’d been brought down to meet him, Kazumono smiled slightly. “It’s not exactly a secret, but from the sound of things I’m guessing you aren’t really the type who plays video games.” His face went passive again. “But regardless, these people are, obviously, related to the others who were sent our prototype power devices. Like your brother, they were eliminated fighting in Kamen Rider Chronicle. You wouldn’t happen to have any idea how three people who aren’t supposed to exist managed to slip in here, and get our most secret new developments sent to three complete outsiders?’

            They sure did take their security seriously at his company, Kensei noticed. “I think I can,” he said slowly. He was about to explain what had happened, but didn’t get the chance.

            “Yesterday Kensei’s brother’s ghost appeared in front of us,” Kiiko suddenly spoke up. “He told us to go to Kensei’s house because we’d find his Gamer Driver there for him.”

            Kensei looked over at her in surprise at suddenly being so open, but Kazumono arched his fingers in front of his face and nodded slowly. “That’s…unexpected. And disturbing. But I believe you.”

            “What does it mean, though?” Kensei asked. “I thought all those people were trapped in the games, asleep or something. Until the Rider doctors could find a way to bring them back. And those monsters, they never disappeared into the sky or had purple spit that started to grow after it touched the ground.”

            Hearing the description, Kazumono’s face darkened. Kensei’s skin started to crawl seeing someone else in this room suddenly have such an extreme expression. “No,” he replied. “They didn’t. I don’t know what that means, Hidenaga-san. Frankly I’m afraid to ask. But whatever _is_ going on, it’s probably _very_ dangerous. And we’re going to need new defenders.”

            Kensei felt Kiiko slide her hand over his then, but when he glanced over she was looking straight at Kazumono instead of him. He knew what Kazumono meant, but what did Kiiko mean by it…?

 

XXX

 

            Blue Oni gasped in pain, reaching up to touch the scorched patch on his chest where Rune’s fireball had hit him. Another was already flying through the air and Blue Oni cracked his whip and smashed it to harmless cinders. Before he could swing it again the other way the last fireball screamed through his defenses and exploded against his shoulder. He yelled out in pain and went down but managed to fight through the pain and get to his knees.

            “You’ll pay for that…we corrupt everything,” Blue Oni hissed. Rune didn’t answer, instead he twisted the dial on his Gamer Cepta and the image on it changed to a tornado. He pressed a button inside the dial and the glowing bird started to give off the howl of a powerful wind just before a miniature tornado formed in front of him and whirled down the street at Blue Oni. But as it did, another section of a line gauge on the side of the wand disappeared, leaving about 65% still lit.

            Blue Oni leaned into the wind while his whip was blown out behind him, lashing back and forth violently until it clipped his head and blood started to seep from a long cut. Finally the monster was blown totally off his feet through the side of a hut that collapsed on him as he fell through it.

He stood up out of the debris and snarled silently at Kamen Rider Rune, any noise drowned out by the roar of the tornado. But then suddenly he held his whip out at arm’s length that started glowing with power. He started spinning and in only a second he turned into a small tornado himself. Blue Oni’s tornado ripped down the street roaring louder and going even faster than the one Rune had created while flying chips of shapr ice everywhere, then blasting right through his tornado and crashing into Rune himself before he could even think about getting out of the way and ripping into his armor as Blue Oni’s whip spun and sliced viciously into him again and again.

            Rune slammed hard into the ground and immediately two thirds of his health bar blinked out. He desperately twisted the dial again as the monster’s tornado spun closer and the image on his wand changed to a word: SLOW. He pushed the button inside the dial and the gauge on the side of the wand dropped to its last third. This would only last a second and took a lot of power, but he had a feeling it was the only thing that would save his life.

            The tip of the wand flashed and the rushing tornado slowed down, and down, and down, until it was only Blue Oni spinning in slow motion with his whip held out. Rune scrambled out of the way and twisted the dial looking for something appropriate. A snowflake, a lightning bolt, a flurry of icicles. All powerful, but if he used one he wouldn’t have enough power left for another shot. What if it didn’t stop the monster?

            His throat clenched and his vision blurred a little. If only he could hold Blue Oni off for a little bit, find one of the coins that would give him back some of his power. They had special powers, he knew that. There had to be one that could give him more mana…didn’t there?

            The air seemed to split at the sharp crack of Blue Oni’s whip. He saw it coming through the air like a long white snake but Rune fell back on purpose and let it pass over his head. He might need a minute to catch his breath, but he _wasn’t_ a pathetic weakling. _Not anymore_. Now he was _powerful_. Now he was going to be someone important. Whatever this new monster outbreak was, _he_ was going to be the one who fixed it, the one who solved the mystery.

            The whip cracked again, coming straight down, but Rune rolled out of the way and it tore up a spray of dirt. Rune kept rolling, looking at the nearest colored coin, purple and showing a man with strange broken pixels behind him. That definitely wasn’t it, but he would figure this out. He knew these better than anyone…

            “You’re still pathetic even with that armor.”

            “You won’t be laughing in a minute!” Rune snarled.

            But Blue Oni wasn’t looking at him. Instead he was looking up at a small cliff behind Rune, and sitting on that was a bored-looking boy in a dark school uniform. He recognized that boy, it was Yoshoku Kasuga, the one all the girls in school adored but who couldn’t care less about them always being around.

            “What…what are you doing here?”

            Yoshoku held up a revolver, one that seemed to be made of neon green plastic and with a hot pink cylinder. On the side of the barrel there was a decal: GAMER PAMAKA. “This means I can go anywhere you can go, doesn’t it?” he said, saying rather than asking even though it was obviously a question. In his other hand his fingers were wrapped around a light blue cartridge like Rune’s, with a label showing a stubble-faced cowboy in a battered leather poncho and hat, chewing on a stalk of grass and brandishing a six-shooter under the words BANG BANG SUNSET.

            He hit the Gashat’s trigger button. “ **Bang Bang Sunset…yeeeeehaw!** ” it yelled, and clicked loudly as Yoshoku slipped it a slot on his Gamer Pamaka’s cylinder. “Henshin,” he said, and pulled the trigger that made a deafening **BANG.** Boxy black and white armor started to creep up to his shoulder but Yoshoku immediately slapped the cylinder up, switching the change to his more versatile form.

“ **Quickdraw Level 2**.” A giant screen appeared above him showing the angry cowboy on the label of his Gashat, but from the faint frown on his face Yoshoku couldn’t have cared less. Again power traveled down his arm, sheathing it in dark blue armor with streams of black stars running up and down the outside of his arms and legs. Giant yellow eyes lit up behind his goggles and a chestplate like the other Riders’ formed on him. In the icons under his health bar were a six-shooter and then a row of three bullets. On his belt was a holster on the right side.

            Then two things came spinning through the air toward him, a cowboy hat made of brown armor that landed on his head and spun around three times before locking itself into place, and a ragged brown poncho with white lines crisscrossing all over it that draped itself over his shoulders covering his chest display. He holstered his gun and gave Blue Oni a penetrating stare.

            “Kamen Rider…Sling,” he introduced himself.

            “You have got to be kidding me,” Rune groaned. “A cowboy??”

            “Not a cowboy, you pathetic child,” Sling snapped at him. “A _gunslinger_.”

            “ _You’re_ the pathetic one if you care about the difference!” Blue Oni jeered at him.            Sling didn’t answer with words. He whipped the Pamaka out of its holster so quickly neither of them noticed he was even reaching for it. In his hand it transformed into a heavier-looking gun made of white plastic-like material with a blue cylinder and a ring around the barrel that had six smaller barrels sticking out of the end. On top of the gun were two A and B buttons, green and orange in color.

            Then before Blue Oni could defend himself, Sling fired. A bullet of yellow power streaked through the air and slammed into the burn wound Rune had left with his fireball attack. Blue Oni screamed and went down on his back, but jumped right back up, eyes burning with hate for Sling. While he was distracted Rune crawled behind one of the huts to look for something to restore his energy.

            “You _die_ for that, Rider!” Blue Oni shrieked, finally losing his cool from before. He lashed his whip with all his might, sending up a wall of wind at the cliff that peppered Sling with shards of ice and knocked him down. The Kamen Rider rolled with the impact, losing only one mark off his health bar, and came into a crouch to fire of another bullet at Blue Oni that hit him in the chest again. The monster was ready this time and clenched his teeth in anger.

            Again he swung his whip and a wall of wind went shooting up to where Sling was crouched on the cliff. As it came up Sling suddenly somersaulted and took off running. He launched himself parallel to the ground and the wind whipped his poncho around, but it only touched the very edges of his boots as squeezed the trigger and fired again.

            Blue Oni’s whip cracked again and send out another wall of wind, the whipping smashing Sling’s bullet as it snaked through the air. But as the wind-wall started pelting him with ice again Sling suddenly rolled off the edge of the cliff, and in midair he pounded the A button on the top of his gun with his palm.

            The ring of smaller barrels around the main one started to spin and blast a storm of smaller energy bullets into the air. The first few went wide and only caved in a hut that a cry of surprise went up from, but then more came down on Blue Oni falling like rain. Tiny fires went up all over his body just for a second but Sling landed and slapped the B button on top of his gun. “ **Bang Bang…Critical FINISH!!!”**

            “Oh no you don’t!” Rune yelled as he suddenly ran out from behind a hut, holding up a giant red coin showing a silhouette of a man holding up wand up over his head. The coin dissolved into red pixels that flowed into his Gamer Cepta. The energy bar on the side shot up to full. Rune twisted the dial on the side to show a lightning bolt and slapped the B button. “ **Taddle Critical FINISH!!!** ”

            Light started to collect at the barrel of Sling’s Pamaka. At the same time Rune raised his Gamer Cepta to the sky and the bird ornament burned white with power. Dark storm clouds immediately formed in the sky and a gigantic bolt of lightning ripped from Rune’s wand, following with a thunderclap so loud the ground under Rune’s feet cracked.

            A **BOOM** almost as loud split the air as an energy bullet half as tall as either of them ripped from Sling’s gun. As it came straight at Blue Oni five lightning bolts snaked through the air and hit the monster at the exact same time. His mouth opened but no sound came out, then his body went completely still. After a second he disintegrated into a stream of pixels that streamed away into the sky.

            Two words appeared above them in huge red and yellow letters as a victory fanfare played: GAME CLEAR. On either side of it appeared giant images of their Gashats.

            “Looks like we got him at the same time,” Rune said, close to a grumble

            “Next, stay out of my way or _I’ll_ get _you_ before any of them,” Sling said, holding his gun up in front of him in warning, then twirling it on his finger before casually sliding it back into its holster without missing.

            “Good luck,” Rune growled back. “ _I_ already know this game.”

            Sling tossed back his head and laughed. “A _game_? You’re even stupider than I thought.”

            “And you’re even stupider than you _look_ in that suit,” Rune retorted.

            It seemed rivalries were already forming.

 

XXX

           

            After having to be led through a maze to get to Kazumono’s lab, Kensei wasn’t looking forward to the idea of another trip through that to get back out again. The tech both surprised and annoyed him a little by taking them back up to ground level in an elevator that Kazumono opened with a swipe of his ID card.

            “So,” Kensei said. “You going to tell people who we really are, since we answered your invitation?”

            But the tech shook his head. “That’s up to you. I invited you here as my guest, after all, and I’m hoping you’ll continue to help us find out what’s going on.”

            “We will,” Kiiko said before Kensei could answer. He gave her a curious look and she gave him a curious look back, but he let it pass.

            “I’m glad to hear that,” Kazumono replied. “And we’ll certainly be letting you know when we have any new developments to report on rediscovering the power of the Gashats.”

            The limo was waiting for them as the security guards locked the doors behind them again, and the chauffeur was holding the door to the back open for them. Kensei waved Kiiko in first, but as she was climbing in she took his hand in hers and pulled him in after her.

            “You can put the divider up if you want to make out,” the chauffeur grinned from the front seat.

            Kensei frowned and put it up anyway.

            Once the driver couldn’t hear them he turned to Kiiko, who looked back at him with a wide-eyed, innocent look. “You…touched my hand when we were talking back there.”

            “Isn’t that something friends do?” she asked.

            “Usually it’s something couples do,” Kensei answered.

            “Could we be a couple?” Kiiko asked him, asking completely innocently.

            At her asking him that question flat-out, he couldn’t help chuckling a little. “Let’s start a little slower, okay?” She titled her head a little at him as he said that. “Why don’t I show you around town, maybe I can see where you live too?”

            She slipped to the far side of the seat. “We can’t go there,” she said immediately, not meeting his eyes.

            “Oh, right. Your family’s in kind of a rough situation too right now, huh? Well, we’ll find something else to do.” Kense glanced down at the Gamer Driver in his lap. “I bet there’s going to be plenty of interesting things happening from now on.”

            She gave him a small smile, but it was the biggest he’d seen on her yet. “You’re right, there will.”

            As they drove along Kensei was sure he saw a bright purple dot high in the sky for just a second, crackling and rippling with power as a strand of energy floated into it, then it was gone. He had a feeling he knew what had just happened, and it would only be a little while before he’d have to deal with it himself, just like Kazumono had said…


	3. A Hero's Weapon Amok

            It had been almost an hour and still the page of equations hadn’t been finished.

            He knew he should’ve been studying. There was never enough time to get it all in. But the booklet Kazumono gave him sat on the desk seeming to stare at Kensei. The tech said everything he needed to know about his new weapons was in there, but it hadn’t been sent with the other things he’d been sent by Genm Corp. Kensei had been putting off looking at it.

            It had been two days already since he’d been “reformatted” by the Gamer Driver he’d gotten in the mail. Which had been sent by his dead brother, whose electronic ghost had somehow snuck into the company’s offices and redirected it to their house. That made him some kind of superhero, who had to replace the old superheroes. Because they’d somehow disappeared right when a bunch of new monsters were showing up. But they were different than the old monsters, the Bugsters. And everything had to do with video games. Somehow.

He felt like he should’ve been getting used to it already. He’d lived through the Bugster problem, the idea of superheroes and monsters getting their powers from video games was something he already knew was all too possible. But even when Yuuma died getting involved, it seemed like an accident. Something terrible that just happened because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not like something his family would get involved in personally.

“Kensei? Are you almost done?” his father called upstairs. “Want to help get dinner ready?”

“No thanks,” Kensei called back. “I’m not really hungry, and I’ve got a lot of homework tonight.”

            “Okay, but it’s not healthy to skip too many meals. Especially at your age!”

            “Thanks for worrying about me, tou-san! I’m fine!” Kensei called back. He looked at the booklet again, and for a second Kensei thought he saw someone standing next to his desk. Tall and proud, with a strong jaw, piercing eyes and yet a brightly friendly smile. He held out a large, powerful hand toward Kensei.

            “Aniki…?” he whispered, but as soon as he had the figure was gone again. He blinked a few times, and wondered if he’d just imagined it. Was Yuuma counting on him after all? Kensei picked up the booklet and flipped it open.

            To his surprise it read like a catalogue instead of a manual. On the first page there were a row of pictures of Rider Gashats like his with descriptions underneath. En En Chambara’s said “The sequel to our megahit GIRI GIRI CHAMBARA is finally here! Experience samurai dueling so realistic you’ll think you’re back in the Sengoku period! Swing blades so fast and so hard, they burn with power! Tune your character and enter massive arena battles with players from all over the country, or take on our 60+-hour single player campaign! Our revolutionary new fighting engine was designed with input from the nation’s finest sword masters!”

            Kensei’s eyes spun. He couldn’t think of a time he’d played a video game after starting high school. What did half of that even _mean_? But he squeezed his eyes shut for a minute and looked over at the other two, figuring they were probably the ones sent to the kids at his school. Taddle Craft…that was probably the one that one guy he’d run into had. And Bang Bang Sunset.

            The first one said, “Learn the story of the wizard who sealed the demon king! Start as an apprentice to a country witch, then choose your own specialties with a skill tree more intricate than any RPG’s been able to provide before! Earn your place in legend!”

            Well, that other Rider had sure sounded like he thought he was a legendary wizard. What about the other one? “In the latest installment of the Bang Bang series, you’re the most wanted man in the west. Track down the twisted land barons who framed you and get revenge! Explore our massive open world, and prove your innocence or become a feared outlaw.”

            A cowboy, and one where even the game would let you become a villain if you wanted. And the Gashat was the same color blue as the one he’d seen Yoshoku carrying before. Would someone like him even do anything with it? He’d always seemed so bored. But then again when he didn’t seem bored, he seemed _angry_. Maybe he’d need to be watched after all.

            There were more games in the catalog, “future releases,” it said, with names like Gamble Paradise, Scorching Kitchen, and a scary-looking one called Lycan Survivor with a picture of a werewolf, razor-sharp teeth dripping foam under a full moon. The other games had descriptions, but that only said “Werewolf  Survival Horror. Coming Soon.”

            It was so much to deal with. “I wish you were here, Yuuma. Then I know we could handle this…”

 

XXX

 

            A while after Kensei and his father finally turned in for the night, high in the night sky a disc of purple energy slowly spread open wide. Beams of black and white power wriggled back and forth across its surface through patches of static. From its edges came strange crackling clouds, and a circle of ten black, irregular shapes floated around it in a ring.

            The edges expanded, then shrank back before expanding again, almost as if it was breathing. Then suddenly a streak of light shot out like a laser and went down, down into the streets below until it hit the back of a building. A second later another one came, hitting a street and disappearing into the ground without doing any damage.

            A few seconds later there was another that went off in another direction, and then another, and yet another until they were flying all over the city.

            Then after a minute of the strange light show the purple disc shrank down on itself again and disappeared into the glare of the city lights below it again.

 

XXX

 

            On the way to school Kiiko Mishiranu stopped looking up for a minute and instead stared hard at a street corner, knowing someone she was expecting would be coming that way soon.

            Indeed, riding an old green bicycle  around the corner a minute later was Kensei Hidenaga. She smiled a little as she saw the bottom of the red En En Chambara cartridge sticking out of his pocket in easy reach.

            As he rode past where she was waiting she sprang into view and grabbed his arm. “You still haven’t shown me around,” she said immediately, before Kensei had even totally stopped.

            “Yeah I did,” he replied, realizing he didn’t even react to her blunt greeting. At least he was getting used to _her_ weirdness. “I showed you where the good restaurants close to school are, and…where the train station is.”

            “You have to show me where the fun things are now,” she insisted.

            Kensei looked back at, and his eyes went wide as he realized he was struggling to think of an answer to her question. God, had it really been that long since he’d done anything really social besides Kendo Club? But he automatically knew just how long it’d been: since Yuuma died in Kamen Rider Chronicle.

            “Uh, sure. Hey, tell me what you want do, and we’ll go do that after school.”

            “I already know. We’ll train.”

            “…we’ll train?”

            “Yes!” she said, suddenly grinning, and Kensei almost jumped in surprise to see her be so emotive. In three days, she’d never done that. “Tell me where the game centers are! We’ll go there and learn all about the different games after school!”

            “That’s training?”

            “Kamen Riders’ powers come from games. Of course it is,” she said, smiling confidently like she’d just made a brilliant observation.

            And, he had to admit, it kind of was. Learning what to expect when fighting more of those monsters, let alone other Kamen Riders who might already know a lot more about games, he’d probably live longer. Especially since it seemed like it was going to be up to him to find out what was going on and what happened to the CR Riders. “Okay,” he said. “That’d probably be fun.”

            “Training’s better than fun,” Kiiko informed him.

            “Oh yeah?” he said, amazed to realize he was loosening up around her. “You know that for a fact, do you?”

            “You show me fun and I’ll tell you if it’s better.”

            “Fair enough,” Kensei replied, smiling a little. Still somewhat to his surprise, Kiiko smiled back.

 

XXX

 

            The two came in together before most of the rest of the class, Kensei Hidenaga and Kiiko Mishiranu. Most, but Doku Dasao was already sitting in the back, writing furiously in a notebook. When the two entered and took their seats, though, he looked up and frowned, his thick glasses gleaming. Kensei met his eyes for a second, and Doku quickly looked back down at his notebook.

            _He knows_ , Doku thought. _Somehow he knows it was me. Whoever they talked to the other night, he must’ve told them. If they know who I am, are they waiting for something? I’ll be ready for it, whatever it is._

            Doku looked down at his papers then, which were observations of Kamen Rider Utsura’s fight with the Red Oni. That had obviously been the main enemy from the tutorial part of En En Chambara. He even had some of the same lines. But even in human form it had seemingly had the same mind and intentions as its monster form, going on and on about corrupting and opening the breach, whatever that meant.

But that was unheard of: the Bugster was a disease, something that wanted to ultimately kill its host to fully develop into an independent being. And no Bugster he’d heard of had purple spit that grew bigger when it touched the ground. The video game tie-in meant these new monsters were related to the Bugster, but had to be some kind of new evolution.

And that meant it was the perfect chance for a new hero to make a name for himself, and make his voice heard.

He just had to scope the competition, find out what they knew, and most importantly move faster than they did.

 

XXX

 

Another day wrapped up at Anagakuen High. Kensei saw the front doors over the other students’ heads and thought about just going home for the night, wanting a little normal time after feeling like eyes had been on him all day, when he heard a loud squeal behind him and saw Yoshoku Kasgu coming just in time to jump back and avoid being crushed by the mob of swooning girls following behind the pretty boy. As he walked past, the other students parting around him so they wouldn’t be trampled by the girls trailing him, Yoshoku turned and glared over at Kensei. But was it because he suspected something about Kensei, or just because Kensei had gotten in his face a few days ago?

But suddenly another girl ran out in front of them, and the mob behind Yoshoku ran out and formed a protective circle in front of him. They almost hissed at the sight of a girl making a sudden move around Yoshoku, before they realized she was going right past him, to where Kensei was leaning against the wall.

Then she looked up at him and he recognized Kiiko Mishiranu, who looped her arm

under Kensei’s and held onto his hand.

“Okay, that’s _definitely_ going too fast,” he murmured to her.

“This way no one else will bother us,” she explained simply, then smiled. “Are you ready to train?”

“Yeah, but I don’t have much money for games.”

In response to that Kiiko reached into a pocket on the outside of her bag and pulled her hand back out with a mound of shiny new coins. “That’s a lot of change,” was the only thing Kensei could say. He looked again and muttered, “But if all those coins were in there, why didn’t I hear them rattling together before?”

“No time for silly little questions!” she declared loudly, smiling widely and scaring a pair of girls walking close to her into jumping back in surprise. “I’m your trainer, and we’ve got a lot to fit in, so let’s GO!!!”

“Yes, ma’am!” Kensei answered, not sure what else to say, and a boy passing next to him jumped back in fright at his sudden outburst.

 

XXX  

 

Personally, he blamed the blinding lights of all the screens. It had been so long, he’d gotten completely unused to how bright video games were to look at it.

This one was especially bad. Under the sign saying AQUA BEAT!, a screen showing a pair of disappointed-looking chibi hula dancers swayed on tiny islands in the middle of a perfectly calm ocen, their scornful eyes seeming to drill right through Kensei. He shook the weird control sticks attached to the game, trying to match the directions to the arrows in the bubbles floating up from the bottom of the screen, but as he missed again the little platform he was standing on shook and a giant red X appeared, covering his half of the screen.

            He’d watched a few kids play this game before it was his turn, and the ocean had been full of whirlpools, tidal waves and giant waterspouts and the hula dancers grinned and blew kisses to the players. His score was still a pitiful 1000. He looked over at Kiiko’s side of the dance game they were playing; her score was still at 0, and she was missing so many signals it was like the giant red X had been on her screen since they started playing.

“Hey, if you two are just going to play like a pair of idiots, get off and let somebody better play!” a boy from another school yelled at them.

Kiiko stopped her useless attempt to keep up with the game’s rhythm and turned to stare at the boy. “How’s anyone supposed to get better with an attitude like that?” she asked with a surprising coldness in her voice. Even Kensei took a step away from her, not noticing as the screen was filled a giant GAME OVER message. “These games belong to everyone!” Kiiko went on. “Everyone starts off weak at something…it’s only through hard work and practice we get better! What kind of heartless person thinks only the people who are already strong should get to be that way???”

The boy who’d insulted their playing backed away, holding his arm up in front of himself like he was about to run for it. “Shit, lady! It’s just a game…”

“Just a game?? Soccer’s just a game, but nobody talks about IT like that! Poker’s just a game! Go’s just a game!...” Kiiko yelled at him until Kensei took her arm and led her away.

“I think that’s enough for now, sensei. Why don’t we try one of the catcher games instead? Those are good for practicing precision, right?” he gently suggested to his loud companion.

“Precision with your hands is important too!” Kiiko exclaimed, thrusting a fist into the air. “Really important for _you_ , especially!”

“Don’t say anything about that,” he hissed at her.

But suddenly she stopped. For a second Kensei thought she was just being unemotional and weird again, but her gaze slid out to the front door, and she stared hard. “What’s wrong, Kiiko? Did you see something?” Kensei asked quietly.

“No. I _felt_ something,” she answered.

Kensei went to the door, and stopped right in his tracks. The city street with its tall buildings that had been there when they came in was slowly being absorbed by a new setting that was crawling over every wall and inch of road.

In it the sky had turned a dirty orange, almost blocked out by giant chipped smokestacks gurgling dark clouds everywhere he looked. On the paths and catwalks of the factory complex weird creatures that looked like roast turkeys lurched along looking for prey. On the highest walkway above them, Kensei spotted one that was dark purple and his stomach tightened at the thought of what it was supposed to be.

This could only be a Game Area, a battlefield the Kamen Riders were supposed to be able to generate to keep people out of the crossfire when they were fighting a dangerous enemy. They created a place that was like a level in a video game, but the instructions hadn’t said anything about them spreading. Something else had to be behind this.

“You could feel this coming?” Kensei asked Kiiko quietly, without turning around.

“Kensei-kun…I promise you I don’t know how I could,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

            A minute passed, and the weird distortion kept crawling down the street closer to them. “Okay,” Kensei finally said to break the silence. “But if you felt it coming…do you maybe know what’s making this happen?”

            Kiiko lifted her arm and pointed straight ahead, down the road into the heart of the factory complex. “Yes,” she answered quietly. “There’s something generating power that way. I think it’s what’s making this appear.”

“Then maybe you’d better come with me so you can point the way I should take,” Kensei said. He held up his hand, and was already holding En En Chambara in it. Kiiko smiled hopefully at him, and he smiled gently back as he walked up to the edge of the weird factory. As they passed over the edge an uncomfortable tingle passed over Kensei’s body, like goosebumps but sharp needles. He looked over at Kiiko, who’d shut her eyes and whimpered a little. But he squeezed her hand for reassurance, and she squeezed his back twice as hard.

Kensei couldn’t hold in a groan of pain.

 

XXX

 

They hadn’t gone in unnoticed, though. Far down the street Yoshoku Kasuga had seen the two of them enter the road leading into the factory, but as he tried to follow after them six girls suddenly ran out in front of him and wrapped their arms around his body.

“Kyaaaaaah! Kasuga-sama, what’s going on?!”

“This is so scary!”

“But you’ll protect us, right Kasuga-sama?!”

He grimaced and struggled against them. If he waited any longer he’d lose sight of Kensei and Kiiko, and he wanted to see what they were after in there. “Let go of me,” he growled.

But the girls didn’t listen, pulling him down the street away from the factory as they kept whimpering with fear. Yoshoku growled with frustration and finally said “I know a really good hiding place. Let go and I’ll take you there. It’s very…special,” he said, rolling the last word as sensually as they’d ever heard anything.

            “I’d go _anywhere_ with you, Kasuga-sama!” one of them squealed and released Yoshoku. And then he suddenly jumped away and ran down the street at an amazing speed for someone so thin. “KASUGA-SAMA!!!”

            He turned the corner before any of them could catch up. As soon as the first girl turned the corner she was met with a wall of black smoke. It cleared after a second, revealing a still fizzling shell of a smoke bomb lying on the ground.

            The only sign of Yoshoku was a dark speck vanishing into the distance on the road running through the strange factory. As they stared after it, none of the girls noticed the edges of the factory complex spreading even farther.

 

XXX

 

As she led the way through the Game Area, a weird purple glow surrounded Kiiko’s outstretched finger, and something started to make her hair dance around in the air behind her. Kensei grabbed her and pulled her out of sight as one of those strange roast turkey-creatures hopped by. _Slurp-plop_ , it went with each hop. _Slurp-plop, slurp-plop._ He swore it stopped and growled for a second before it kept bouncing along the path. _Slurp-plop, slurp-plop, slurp-plop…_

“Don’t you want to fight them?” Kiiko whispered to him. “Isn’t that what you do in a game like this?”

He shook his head. “I did that _one time_ before this. I’m going to save my power until I _have_ to fight.”

After a second Kensei started back out onto the pathway but stopped again as he heard the catwalk above them shake with movement. But slow, strong footsteps, not the disgusting _slurp-plop_ of the weird turkey creatures.  “I’ll give you a fight,” said a deep, distorted voice before someone jumped down and faced them.

It was another Kamen Rider, one in dark blue armor and wearing a brown leather poncho and cowboy hat above his giant eyes. Kensei had a feeling the gun in his hand wasn’t any less deadly just because it looked like it was made out of plastic. And sticking out of the cylinder was something Kensei recognized: the blue Bang Bang Sunset Gashat.

“Unless,” the other Rider went on, “that girl comes with _me_ to lead me to the center of all this.”

“No,” Kiiko immediately replied. “Kensei’s my friend. I’ll only go if he comes.”

The Rider looked over at him. “Kensei? Ironic name, huh? What do you say to that, _Kensei,_ the mighty samurai!” he laughed.

“I say who the hell are _you?_ ” Kensei retorted.

The Rider twirled his gun on his finger and easily slid it into his holster, tilted his head forward then touched the rim of his armored hat with his finger before he looked back up again. “You can call me…Kamen Rider _Sling_. The greatest gunslinger.”

Kiiko looked over at Kensei, who stood there silently. His Gamer Driver had been belted around his waist ready to be used ever since they’d entered the Game Area, and En En Chambara was still in his hand. But the look he was giving Kamen Rider Sling was one of simple irritation. Not fear, not caution. Did he even see the other Rider as a threat?

“No. Just get out of our way.” Apparently not. “We have a real job to do.”

As if it had never been put away Sling’s gun was in his hand again and aimed at Kensei’s head. He laughed. “You have _no_ idea who you’re mouthing off to, kid!”

“Get out of our way,” Kensei repeated.

His words were almost lost by the sound of Sling’s gun going off. A glowing bullet shot from the barrel and tore a hole through the edge of Kensei’s earlobe. “Girl, let’s go. Say goodbye to your friend, unless you want to say goodbye to his _head_.”

“No,” Kiiko whispered. “You can’t beat Kensei.”

“ **En En ChamBARA!** ” defiantly yelled the Gashat in Kensei’s hand. He shoved it into its spot on his Gamer Driver and pulled the lever back. “ **Kenjutsu Level 2.** ”

 

XXX

 

            The last of the police cars moved into position to form a half-circle. Weird hissing and cracking came from the edges of the Game Area as it kept spreading, its edges with their square-shaped crags crawling over the road, the sides of buildings, even over the sky. A group of officers was holding out their arms and standing in a wider half-circle down the street, blocking people trying to get a closer look at what was going on.

            They were the lucky ones, most of the riot squad gathering into formation by the Game Area were concerned. This was a job for those superheroes. Where were they at a time like this?

“All right!” yelled the officer in charge, and the riot police jumped to attention. “Everyone ready! Keep your eyes peeled for trapped civilians, look for anything to identify who—or WHAT—is responsible for this!” he reminded them at the top of his voice. He fell into position at the front of the line. The edge of the Game Area crawling over the ground suddenly jumped forward a few feet and gave a threatening crackle. A few of the police officers stepped back in surprise, but formed up again and started to march into the Game Area holding their riot shields and batons up to be ready immediately.

The officers in front cried out in surprise as they got to the edge of the Game Area, stopped and their bodies pulsed with energy for a second before they thrown backwards by a burst of power, crashing into others and knocking them all down in a heap.

“What happened??” demanded one of the floored officers, pinned under two of his squadmates.

“There’s something around it,” gasped one of the officers from the front who’d been thrown into the others. “Some kind of wall or something…we ran into it and it pushed us back!”

The officer in charge got up first and gathered up his gear, staring into the factory of the Game Area. As he did a green turkey-creature turned on one of the walkways and faced them. “We can’t get in,” he breathed even as the door of a convenience store disappeared underneath the spreading sides of the Game Area. “I hope someone can.”

 

XXX

 

The Gashacon Zashi appeared in Kamen Rider Utsura’s hand and seemed to become a green blur as he slashed at Sling’s Pamaka.

Sling himself squeezed the trigger and a glowing bullet shot out and hit Utsura right over the heart. He only flinched for a second and went charging at his rival with his sword in his hand, battering the A button on the hilt until another wakizashi appeared in his other hand. Utsura brought them both up over his head and slashed at Sling with all his might.

Without warning Sling jumped high into the air, his poncho billowing up around him and just barely avoiding Utsura’s powerful swing. Sling hit the A button on his own weapon, making the ring of small barrels shoot off rapid-fire shots down on Utsura. The samurai Rider crossed his short swords over his face and let the worst of the shots glances off his blades and the thickest parts of his armor.

As Sling started to come down Utsura broke his defense stance and ran over underneath Sling, then jumped and shoulder-checked him in the stomach with the hardest part of Utsura’s armor.

The gunslinger spun awkwardly backward through the air. As Utsura landed on his feet Sling hit the ground and rolled a few times before suddenly bringing up his weapon and firing off another rapid burst. This time all of them hit. Utsura’s swords went flying out of his hands. But after just a second Utsura recovered and held his arm out in a fighting stance, turning his head slightly to see where one of his swords had landed.

“Wait, what’s that?” Kiiko asked.

“You don’t honestly think I’m going to fall for that,” Sling laughed, not taking his giant cartoon eyes off Utsura. Or his gun.

But Utsura planted his feet hard and looked down the road. “Shit, she’s right!”

Just in case they weren’t trying to trick him Sling glanced down the road and gasped in horror.  Coming toward them like a giant hopping tidal wave was a stampede of dark purple turkey-creatures. It jumped closer and seemed to double in size, smashing catwalks and tipping over a smokestack.

But Utsura had gotten the instructions for his Gamer Driver since his last fight, and now he knew all his options. He swung his hand and a ring of square icons spun into sight around him, and he reached out and hit one with his palm. “ **Open: Cruiser. War Steed!** ” The shape of a horse appeared in front of him as a wireframe model then colors started flowing into the shape and making it solidify. Utsura stepped back in surprise when he saw the final appearance: it wasn’t a horse, but a dark bronze and green suit of armor for a horse, with a wide saddle and flank armor, long coverings for its legs and a flat helmet with pointed ears floating in midair where the horse’s head would be.

He jumped into the saddle and held out his hand for Kiiko then hauled her up behind him. The ground shook again, harder, and the turkey-creature tidal wave slammed into a smokestack that started to fall over in their direction. Utsura’s ghost horse reared up on its hind legs and whinnied then galloped off.

“You’re not leaving me behind!” Sling shouted after them, and touched an icon in front of him too.

“ **Open: Cruiser. Stagebike!** ” A motorcycle formed in front of Sling, but it was made of plates of dark iron slapped haphazardly together, with wooden stagecoach wheels and three winding pipes belching steam coming out of the back on both sides. Sling jumped on and roared away after them as the edge of the huge glob of purple monsters smashed down where he’d been.

 

XXX

 

After a minute the sound of the wave crashing down after them faded into the distance. Sling was right behind them on his steampunk motorcycle. Utsura steered left suddenly down a narrow path between a flat concrete building and one of the smokestacks, then right around another sharp corner. A catwalk passed by above them and Utsura had his ghost horse jump to it and gallop away from the main road through the complex.

“Are we getting closer?” Utsura asked, although he hardly needed to. The glow around her hand had turned white and small currents of energy were flowing over her body.

“Yes, but Sling is still close,” Kiiko answered.

“I don’t see him,” Utsura answered and looked back over his shoulder through the buildings.

“He’s back there, on the next avenue over,” Kiiko said. “I can _see_ him, just a red shape of him on his motorcycle. He’s not far behind.”

“Well, maybe he sees where we’re going too,” Utsura replied, but then he saw what Kiiko had been guiding him toward.

Sticking out over the mess of catwalks and low steel buildings was a huge chocolate-frosted donut standing on its side. Inside was something glowing with pink light. “That must be what we’re looking for, the end of the level. We better be careful, though.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Maybe I haven’t gamed in forever, but even I remember there’s always some strong enemy guarding the end of a level,” Utsura said. He stopped his horse by a staircase off the catwalk. “Find someplace safe to wait while I take care of this, okay?” She nodded and Utsura turned and jumped his horse over the distance to the giant donut.

That was something he never thought he’d have to consider a goal.

As the horse made the landing he heard Sling’s bike screeching to a halt and with lightning reflexes pulling his Pamaka and pointed it at Utsura’s helmet.

But there, floating in the air just past the giant chocolate donut marking the end of the level, was a Rider Gashat just like his. It was surrounded by a pink glow that seemed to pulse like a heart. It had to be what was making the Game Area appear.

“I’ll take that,” Sling warned him.

“No, wait. What about the boss enemy?” Utsura replied.

“The _what_?” Sling demanded. He got his answer as two shapes suddenly popped out of one of the smokestacks, looped-the-loop a couple times then crashed down between the Riders and the giant donut, embedding themselves in the ground. They were a pair of giant grey eggs. Sling aimed his gun at the closer one instead of Utsura, but a second passed and nothing happened. “Is that what you were so worried about?”

Then at the same second, both eggs cracked. A giant yellow drill bit popped out of the end of one, and then two sets of black tank treads pushed themselves out of the bottom. It tilted forward until it crashed down, landing on its wheels.

The bottom of the other egg split in half and two long silvery legs unfolded themselves until they towered over the Riders, standing almost ten feet high. Thin arms ending in three sharp-looking pincers broke out from the sides.

Then the tops of both eggs broke open. A pair of creatures—big furballs with eyes and mouths, one blue and the other yellow—stuck their heads out. “HI!” shrieked the blue one with a smile of long sharp teeth. “I’m Ginger!”

“I’m Nutmeg!” declared the other one, whose teeth looked even sharper. “Want to be friends???”

“Get out of my way!” Sling answered for him and Utsura.

“TRICK QUESTION!!!” both of the furry creatures laughed. Ginger spun the steering wheel of his drill-egg, the bit screaming to life with menace, and drove it straight at Utsura. His horse sensed what he needed and dodged out of its way just a second before he would’ve been smashed.

“I’ll handle this! You’re no good without your weapons!” Sling yelled as Nutmeg reached out with his egg-mech’s big sharp fingers and tried to pinch Sling’s head with them. He wheeled his bike backward just in time for it to only skim the brim of his hat, then Sling started riding in circles around Nutmeg’s egg-mech. He fired off an energy bullet that cracked the front of its armor and knocked it off-balance for a second, then roared off to the giant donut where the Gashat was waiting.

Before he could get to it the ground in front of the donut suddenly cracked and Ginger exploded out of the ground driving his drill-egg straight up in the air and grinning like a maniac as it landed and he drove it at Sling. The Rider drove away from it, firing another energy bullet from his Pamaka that was just smashed out of sight by the drill.

“Maybe _he_ only has one weapon,” Utsura mumbled to himself. A ring of icons formed around him and he hit a different one with his fist.

            “ **Gashacon Tana!** ” And a sword like his Gashacon Zashi appeared as a wireframe model in his hand then quickly solidified into a new weapon. It looked just as much like a toy, but the bright green blade was wider and nearly twice as long. As it finished forming Utsura stared in disbelief as a ray of light ran dramatically up the blade to flare at the tip for just a second.

            Nutmeg’s egg-mech reached out to snatch him off his Cruiser but Utsura let out a war cry and slashed the arm away. It jerked violently and cracks formed at the shoulder where it connected to the body, chips falling off the bizarre mech’s armor. Nutmeg gaped at what Utsura had done to his vehicle with just one attack, then closed the sharp pincers on the other hand, which started to spin like a drill.

            Then he stabbed it at Utsura with blinding speed, who met it with another powerful slash from his katana.

 

XXX

 

            Ginger laughed like a madman and let a three-foot tongue hang out of his mouth as he zoomed back and forth, trying to impale Sling with the drill on his vehicle. The Rider turned and squeezed off a shot at Ginger’s head, but the furry monster just leaned away with a laugh and only earned some singed fur.

            “Shimata!” Sling hissed in frustration. To use a more powerful shot he’d need a hand free to hit the buttons on his Pamaka. But that was impossible to do and keep control of his Cruiser when it was going flat-out like it was. And if he slowed down…

            “Come over here, Kamen Rider! I’ll let you see how sharp I keep this thing!” Ginger said, seeming to scream and laugh at the same time.

            Sling drove straight ahead at a concrete building. When he was a second away from crashing into it Sling suddenly turned, leaning so far his boot brushed the ground His hunch was right and Ginger couldn’t turn his heavier vehicle out of the way in time. The egg-drill smashed the building to bits and rolled over and over, but came down with its drill pointed at the ground. It screamed to life and tunneled underground again.

            The steampunk motorcycle swerved back around. He eyed the Gashat floating there, waiting to be claimed. But Sling wasn’t stupid enough to think about trying to get it again without taking care of these monsters. He looked across the ground for any sign the drill-egg was about to break through the ground again.

Then exactly what he was expecting, happened.

            The sound of cracking ground and a screaming giant drill came from right underneath his Cruiser. Sling’s bike was tossed into the air like a toy by Ginger’s drill-egg.

            Sling jumped off the seat of his motorcycle as it was ripped to shreds by the giant drill. He somersaulted once in the air, tucking his legs up against his chest to avoid being hit by the pieces as he waited for just the right moment. The drill-egg tipped forward and landed on its treads, laying out the only unprotected spot: the pilot seat.

            “Not a bad toy, furball! But _mine’s_ the best!” Sling taunted and pounded the B button on top of his Pamaka. “ **Bang Bang Critical Finish!** ” Ginger looked up as he heard the gun’s voice shout out and his giant mouth dropping open as he saw the gun barrel glowing as it collected power. Sling repeatedly hit the A button as it fired and the main bullet was followed by a rain of smaller shots that peppered the hairy monster and all over his vehicle. The main shot tore straight down through the drill-egg.

Ginger had a chance to whine, “Oh, shucks!” before he and his vehicle both broke down into a stream of pixels that lifted into the sky.

 

XXX

 

The ground shook as Nutmeg’s egg-mech slammed its fist into the ground, the blade-like fingers on its hand skimming the side of Utsura’s ghost horse. With incredible speed for such a big, goofy-looking fighting machine its other hand looped out and tried to grab Utsura. He leaned hard to the side to avoid it but the sharp metal fingers still closed around his shoulder. Utsura yelled in pain and slashed the arm once, twice, and managed to shake the egg-mech’s grip off him.

He rode around the egg-mech, looking for a soft spot his Gashacon Tana could get through easily. He noticed the cracks around the shoulder of one arm from the first time he’d hit it and formed a plan.

As Nutmeg reached out for him again, snapping his teeth and giggling, Utsura suddenly whipped his ghost horse the other way and it galloped past the egg-mech. As it did Utsura stood up in the saddle and hacked at where the arm met the body. His blade bit deep into the cracked armor and sliced through the thin joint holding it in place. The arm dropped off, spitting sparks.

“I dare you to try that again, Rider!” Nutmeg screeched, swiping his giant tongue back and forth like a whip. The other arm reached out for him, spinning to chop him to pieces.

“If you say so,” Utsura replied, and hit the B button on his Gashacon Tana’s hilt. The blade hummed with power and Utsura gripped it with both hands as he rode straight at Nutmeg’s egg-mech.

As the spinning hand came close Utsura swung his sword and easily knocked it away. The incredible force of the blow ran up the arm and shook the shoulder loose from where it connected to the main body. He raised the Gashacon Tana high over his head. “ **En En Riding Critical Finish!** ” his Gamer Driver shouted as he rode right in front of the egg-mech. Utsura felt power gathering in his arms, then slashed down, the blade bursting into green flames. It cut straight through Nutmeg’s head and down through the egg-mech’s torso before Utsura rode underneath it.

As Nutmeg’s vehicle split in two they both dissolved into pixels that turned into a ribbon that floated into the sky, joining the one made by Ginger’s remains. Sling landed in a crouch then and looked up, locking giant cartoon eyes with Utsura’s. Then both looked at where the pink Gashat was hovering past the giant donut.

“Don’t you even think about it, Hidenaga!” Sling snarled and whipped his gun up at Utsura’s head. “That’s _mine!_ ”

Utsura didn’t even answer. His horse just galloped away and through the giant donut. Sling fired his gun over and over at him but Utsura held out his hand and grabbed the Gashat out of the air. Overhead the giant GAME CLEAR message spun into sight and a little victory fanfare played just like when he’d beaten the Red Oni.

“Give that to me now,” Sling said in a menacing whisper.

“Why?”

“Because unlike you I have _real_ important things to do, and I’m the one who needs _real_ power.”

“Right, that’s why you threatened the two of us when she offered to team up,” Utsura replied. He glanced down at the label of the Gashat. It showed a pink ball-shaped creature with three curvy hairs sticking out of the top of its head, big green sneakers and goggles with giant cartoony eyes that looked a lot like their own masks. Next to it was a logo: Mighty Action X.

But as soon as he took it all in the Gashat started shaking in his hand. He tried to hold on but it only shook more violently. After another second it yanked itself free and flew away into the sky, joining the streams of pixels that had been their enemies. All of them flowed into a giant glowing circle high above them.

Then a rectangular screen formed in the air. In the top left corner a tiny picture appeared of the Mighty Action X Gashat that started spinning slowly in place, and on the bottom of the screen was written “Collection Expanded.”

Sling stared after the Gashat as it went, his giant cartoon eyes focused on the sky for a minute after the screen had faded away again. Then he whipped around and stared straight at Utsura, who didn’t need the gun Sling had pointed at his head to feel the rage burning off the cowboy Rider. “You idiot…what did you _do_?!”

“Nothing!” Utsura replied. “I just touched it! I didn’t even hit the button!”

“You _liar_! You dirty _thief_!!!” Sling screamed and had already hit the B button on the Pamaka, power collecting at the barrel for another shot.

But Utsura was already galloping away and disappeared between a pair of smokestacks before Sling got the chance to pull the trigger. The fight was over, and he wasn’t the type to drag one out when there was nothing at stake but his opponent’s bruised ego.

“You wuss! Coward! Hell of a samurai you are!” Sling yelled and fired after him, but already he knew there was no point. Not only was Utsura gone but the factory complex was disappearing around Sling. Patches of ordinary asphalt were forming here and there on the ground, even under Sling’s own feet, and starting to spread and reveal the ordinary city street underneath. Above him patches of windows and the sides of building were appearing in midair between the smokestacks, and even in the dirty orange sky overhead. The power of the Game Area was fading fast.

And it was thanks to Kensei Hidenaga he was leaving empty-handed.

Before, Hidenaga had just been an annoyance.

Now, it was personal.

 

XXX

 

Utsura slowed his horse down as the factory finished fading away. Without a ride of his own, Sling was a problem for another day. And he couldn’t help being a little glad for that, as he touched the side of his helmet and started noticing the ache from where Sling had shot him.

It would be fun explaining the divot in his ear to his parents. Was a secret identity something he wanted to put up with, or not? So many questions. Was being a superhero going to complicate _everything_?

He stepped onto a main road. “There!” someone yelled. Not far away was a barricade of police cars, and as everyone turned to face the mounted masked man a female reporter and her cameraman pushed past the surprised offers and ran up to Utsura. For a second he thought about galloping away before they could catch up to him, but he stopped himself. If the CR Riders were gone, didn’t people deserve to know there was someone there trying to fix all the craziness going on all of a sudden?

“Did I really just think that?” he mumbled before the reporter actually skidded to a stop next to him.

“It seems that witness accounts are to be believed after all,” she spoke into her microphone as the cameraman focused his lens on Utsura. “A new group of Kamen Riders has appeared, and is fighting to protect the city from a new generation of Bugsters.”

“Group’s an awfully strong word,” Utsura said to himself, but the reporter didn’t give any sign she’d heard it as she brushed some dust off the shoulder her jacket before she stepped into the shot.

“Can you tell us your name, sir?” the reporter asked a second later and pressed the microphone at him. Over her shoulder Utsura spotted Kiiko crouched behind a pair of trash cans, smiling faintly and giving him a thumbs up.

“…Utsura,” he replied. “Kamen Rider Utsura.”

“Can you tell us anything about what’s been happening? The situation with new Bugsters and what’s happened to the previous Kamen Riders?” the reporter asked into her microphone before shoving it right into Utsura’s face.

He backed away a little but collected himself and answered, “No one knows for sure, but I intend to find out.”

 

XXX

 

**Well, there’s my third chapter and done a lot sooner than I was expecting.**

**I based the boss enemies on some ones from old Sonic the Hedgehog games, the Emerald Hill Zone boss from Sonic 2, and the Palmtree Panic Zone boss from Sonic CD, Since Sonic was the most obvious influence on Mighty and all.**

**The two of them were named after spices because I imagined them as members of Salty’s gang, the boss of Mighty Action X. And their vehicles were based on eggs because, again, Sonic villains.**

**We also saw that weird portal in the sky shoot the old Riders’ Gashats all over town. One’s already been found. But what happened to it when it flew away, and why did whatever’s in there want it gone? Regardless, it seems the new Riders have a collection of items they need to find like in proper retro game tradition to get to the bottom of this mystery.**

**Let’s see if they can get any closer next time.**


	4. Hard Intent and a Tight Grip

            Nothing.

            Three whole days, and nothing.

            No word from Kazumono at Genm Corp., no new Bugster, and probably most worringly, no confrontations with Doku Dasao or Yoshoku Kaguga. Were they waiting to see who made the first move? Or were they maybe waiting until he dropped his guard before coming after them? Should he make the first move? And if he did, what? Try to talk to them, or give them a reason not to try anything with him?

            Kensei Hidenaga laid back and stared at the smooth white ceiling of his bedroom, dimly lit by the glare of the street outside. What was he doing? Fighting with monsters and other kids his own age? Hadn’t his brother died doing this? Wasn’t something like fighting a war supposed to be somebody else’s job, so ordinary people like him could go on with their normal lives?

            He shut his eyes, wondering what he might dream about, and knowing it was too late to ask questions about whose job this was. He was Kamen Rider Utsura now, like it or not. The Gamer Driver he’d been sent had bonded to him, and nobody else could activate it. The only questions he could ask were the ones about what came next.

            And Kensei was sure he’d need to answer them sooner than he wanted.

            His eyes were just closing as his phone rang loudly over on the desk. Reacting out of instinct Kensei lurched out of bed, stomped twice while bent over and fumbled at the corner of his desk for his phone, and answered it on the third ring as he recognized the number.

            “I’m here!! What’s happening??”

            “Nothing!” answered the voice on the other end. “But it’s great you’re so pumped up when you saw me calling! We need to train even harder tomorrow!”

            Kensei let out a sigh and dropped his hands to his waist for a second, then raised the phone to his ear again. “Kiiko, why are you calling me this late to talk about training? Can’t we just talk about this at school?”

            “No!” Kiiko practically yelled into the phone, but Kensei could tell from her light tone she was smiling. “I found a game center that’s a lot bigger than the one we’ve been going to! It’s got much better games to train on, too! Don’t worry, I’ll still pay.”

            “Well, if you’re buying—”

            “I am, but _you’re_ training! See you at school tomorrow!” Then without waiting for a reply, she hung up.

            And standing there in the darkness of his room, in the middle of the night, Kensei Hidenaga couldn’t help smiling at the crazy girl who’d declared herself his trainer. He was still a little unsure about what he was doing, but Kiiko, she couldn’t be more psyched up about him being the hero who’d get to the bottom of all this.

Yuuma…he had to believe it really was Yuuma somehow, who snuck into Genm Corp. and sent Kensei his henshin gear. He seemed to think this was a job Kensei was the best person to handle too.

            …and, would it be so bad, having a friend again? Even one as crazy as Kiiko Mishiranu?

 

XXX

 

            Kiiko didn’t talk much the next day, but every so often when the teachers weren’t paying attention she’d glance over at Kensei and gave him a smug little smile, like she had something lined up for him she was just waiting for the chance to unveil.

            He wondered what kind of game she’d found, but he kept looking back over his shoulder as well at Doku Dasao, the angry nerd who’d badmouthed the entire class the other day. The one who’d been sent a henshin device and a Rider Gashat just like Kensei had. But why? And did he know about Kensei having Kamen Rider powers too? Had Genm Corp. talked to the others yet?

            As lunch break came closer, Kensei tried to decide if he should confront Doku about their shared powers. To see if maybe he’d be willing to talk about joining forces. It didn’t seem likely, not with the way he’d talked down to the whole class, but then again “friends are something it’s hard to have enough of,” his mother had always said.

            Since Kensei was stuck doing this after all, he was sure he’d come to appreciate that saying in a whole new way.

            But Kensei didn’t get the chance to come up with an answer to his question of what he’d say to Doku. He looked over as Kiiko cupped a hand over her mouth, to hide the fact that she was suddenly breathing heavy. Tiny currents of purple energy danced through her hair. Behind him, Kensei was sure he could hear Doku letting out a small gasp too.

            “Is something wrong, Mishiranu-san?” the teacher asked. Clearly he’d noticed too.

            “Yes,” Kiiko asked. “Something’s happening to the school.”

            “What are you talk—” the teacher started to ask, then stopped. A wave of weird energy was seeping into the classroom through the windows, square shapes flickering in and out around the edges. Kensei froze in horror, and not jut because a Game Area was suddenly forming right in the middle of his school. They weren’t on the ground floor, but the color forming inside the room was a pleasant sky blue…

            “COME ON!!” Kensei yelled and grabbed Kiiko by the arm and ran as fast as he could for the hall door. He didn’t need to say a word: the entire first row was already in front of him, panicking and clawing at the door. By the time they made it to the hall every other class was already spilling out too, the students running for the stairways to get to the ground, to some hope of escape. In the confusion it wasn’t hard for Kensei and Kiiko to disappear _up_ one instead.

            “You’re sure about this?” Kensei asked when they got to the next floor and saw the last of the students and teachers disappearing down other stairways. “If you’re wrong, I have a feeling we’re going to be thirty feet in the air with no floor.”

            But she pointed up and that weird purple glow that had led them to a Rider Gashat before was already brightening up. “It’s definitely up there. We have to go there to get it and make this stop.”

            Kensei grunted uncertainly as the Game Area kept crawling over the floor and walls, all sky blue with no ground in sight. Kiiko suddenly laced her fingers through his, and gave him a reassuring squeeze.

            “That’s still something couples usually do,” he mumbled.

            “We’re not a couple, then, if you’re worried about that,” she replied. “Instead, let’s be brave heroes! The games never just drop the heroes off a mountain, right?”

            “I guess not,” Kensei replied, supposing that did sound like a huge ripoff. And as the Game Area crawled up under their feet he saw the edges of a narrow mountain path forming under them. The Game Area closed over their heads, and high above them was a flat mountain peak. Hovering just above it Kensei could see a faint blue glow.

            And circling the peak, over and over again, was a giant bird.

            At least, that was what Kensei thought it was at first glance. But as he looked a little harder he realized it was actually a horse with wings. And when he looked even harder he saw it had the upper torso of a man where its head should’ve been, wearing gleaming silver armor and carrying a lance and shield like a knight.

            Then, realizing he probably shouldn’t, Kensei looked down. Far, far below at the bottom of the mountain he saw tiny people milling around, and realized they were the people from his school. Somehow he and Kiiko were so high up the rest of the students looked like ants, even though they’d only been on the third floor when the Game Area appeared. Were these things that powerful, that they could warp reality that much?

            But past them he could see the edges of the game area slowly spreading over the buildings on the rest of the block. They’d have to hurry.

            “Okay,” Kensei said. “Let’s go be brave heroes.” Kiiko grinned. “Does the brave heroine know a quick, _safe_ way up to the top?”

            She pointed to a path that circled up the side of the mountain. The light at the end of her finger got even brighter.

            They started up the trail.

 

XXX

 

            But they weren’t alone.

            He knew he probably should’ve kept his hands free to grab something if he started to lose his balance. He’d never been the athletic type, after all. Big surprise.

            His henshin gear had to be held in his hand, though. And he knew these games well enough to know to expect a fight out of nowhere. Wasn’t that how it always worked? You were just walking through the woods, or up a mountain, or about to get into a town or whatever. Then **BOOM**. The screen exploded and there was a bunch of monsters who had a problem with you for some reason. He had to be ready for when that happened.

            It always did in these games.

            It was how you got stronger in them. By winning lots of fights. He knew that, but it seemed like some people thought they got to skip the path to being a master. He’d seen that idiot Yoshoku go into a cave, probably thinking it’d be a shortcut to the top.

            Doku, though, he recognized this area already. This was clearly Mount Testament in Taddle Quest, that was guarded by the Pegasus Knight at the top. That cave had a few interesting items in there, but mostly he’d be spending an hour fighting an endless string of annoying, poisonous spider-bats.

            “ **Taddle Craft** ,” said the Gashat in his other hand as he hit the trigger. He inserted it into the Gamer Cepta and pulled back on the dial it had on its side. “ **Arcana Level 2**.” Like before, power surged down his arm and spread through his whole body. Green lines ran up and down his body, tying themselves into complex Celtic patterns. A hooded purple robe appeared and draped itself over his shoulders and mystical symbols flashed into being all over it.

            “I’ll make you proud, Hiromi-san,” Doku, or rather Kamen Rider Rune whispered as he started up the mountain.

 

XXX

 

            “Something’s coming,” Kensei whispered, and already had En En Chambara in his hand.

            “I can hear it too,” Kiiko said. There was a sound of something beating in the wind, and after another few seconds a group of three men with long feathered wings flew around the side of the mountain. They had weapons in their hands—a spear, a barbed sword and a studded mace—and their faces were hidden by clouds of flickering pixels.

            And they immediately came diving at the two teens, screeching like angry birds.

            Kiiko immediately slipped back along the path, and Kensei knew she was retreating to give him all the room she could to let him fight. “ **En En ChamBARA!** ” the Gashat yelled as he hit the trigger button and slid it into his Gamer Driver and immediately pulled the lever open. “ **Kenjutsu Level 2.** ”

            The bird Bugsters were about to crash into Kensei and impale him on all their weapons at the same time. Suddenly the pieces of his samurai armor came flying through them, scattering them and forming around his body as the Gamer Driver’s power covered him, changing him into Kamen Rider Utsura again. His helmet locked onto his head, the crescent spike on it gleaming as if signifying his power.

            But the Bugsters recovered quickly, circling back to attack again. Utsura hit the icon to summon his Gashacon Zashi then mashed the A button on the hilt until another toy-looking wakizashi appeared in his other hand. As the Bugster armed with a spear came in to try and stab him Utsura held his swords up in a scissors shape, catching the tip of the spear between them, then closing suddenly and snapping the spear in half. Before the Bugster could recover from his surprise Utsura jumped and slashed with both swords, sending the Bugster spinning crazily through the air before disappearing into a stream of pixels.

            The other two Bugsters hovered in the air, seeming unsure after Utsura had easily disarmed and defeated one of them. They flew off but after a second they circled back, coming at him from different sides. Utsura stood his ground and gripped his swords for what was coming. He could survive this but his timing would have to be absolutely perfect…

            Tucking in their wings the Bugsters both went into a dive at Utsura with their weapons held out in front of them, aimed at his head and torso. Behind his mask he shut his eyes, sucked in a breath, and then a second before he was about to have his body caved in by the two Bugsters coming at him like missiles Utsura he suddenly spun like a tornado and hit them both at the same time with all his might.

            Neither monster made a sound as they spun away from the side of the mountain until they disintegrated into steams of pixels that followed the first Utsura had taken care of. He gave a sigh of relief that his plan had worked, but stopped as Kiiko cried out.

            “Kensei! I mean…look!”

            He did and saw a green and purple blur flying past, and inside a small tornado. He landed on the trail far in front of Utsura, and the giant eyes underneath his hood were unmistakable. “Rune,” Utsura said.

            “That’s right,” the hooded Rider replied, but then without waiting for a reply Rune ran up the trail, obviously eager to get to the top first.

 

XXX

 

            By the time Utsura and Kiiko had caught up, Rune was already at the top of the mountain. It was wide and flat, looking an awful lot like an arena to Utsura’s eyes. He didn’t have to guess why, with the winged centaur he’d noticed before circling the mountain top coming lower and lower until he landed in the middle of the area, between the two Riders and the glowing Gashat at the end.

            “Turn back, humans!” he yelled at them, but the effect was ruined a little by being muffled through his heavy helmet. “The power kept enshrined here is not for lowly beings like you!”

            “I’m not a lowly mortal, and I don’t care who put you here, Pegasus Knight,” Rune retorted. “I’m a great wizard, and I’ll teach you to respect my name! Just like I’ll teach everyone else!”

            “It won’t work,” Utsura said, not reacting to his grandiose introduction.

            “What the hell are you talking about?” Rune asked without turning to look back at him.

            “Those Gashats, we can’t use them. It’ll fly away after you touch it. I got one before but I never got a chance to use it.”

            Rune scoffed at him. “Just shows how weak the rest of you are. Watch, and you’ll see how someone who _knows_ how to use power does it!”

            Pegasus Knight stomped his hoof angrily. “Enough! Leave or prepare to do battle!”

            Rune responded by pointing his wand at the winged monster and firing off a blast of icy air, giant snowflakes whipping out and slicing into the monster’s armor. Pegasus Knight gasped in surprise but then picked up his lance and charged at Rune.

As the other Rider dodged out of the way Utsura raised his weapons and stepped forward to join the fight. He’d seen what happened when they tried to take one of these weird Gashats that created a Game Area, but what if Rune was right, and there was some way for one of them to use it? Could he risk letting someone as angry as Rune have even more power?

            Pegasus Knight whipped around and aimed his lance at Utsura as he charged again. Utsura threw one of his small swords at Pegasus Knight’s chest and the monster raised his shield and deflected it. But while he was focused on that Utsura ran up and actually jumped on to the monster’s lance, running up it and dealing a powerful slash across Pegasus Knight’s shoulder. He yelled in pain but held onto his lance, whipping it to the side and shaking Utsura off.

            Pegasus Knight turned around and ran right into another blast of icy air from Rune’s wand. It was even colder than his first attack and in seconds frost was forming on Pegasus Knight’s armor and the horse-like part of his body. The monster slashed with his lance at Rune, but the wizard Rider was just out of his reach. He kept the Gamer Cepta pointed at Pegasus Knight and the icy wind got even colder until a sheet of ice covered the ground and crawled up to form over the monster’s four legs.

            Then Rune twisted the dial on the side of the wand and instead of ice it shot out a blast of flame. The ice melted rapidly and Pegasus Knight was blasted backward. Rune was twisting the dial for a new attack but it seemed he’d underestimated his opponent, as Pegasus Knight suddenly lunged up and jabbed Rune on the tip of his lance.

            Rune yelped and went flying a few feet before he hit the ground. Most of his health bar flickered out, and Utsura jumped in between Pegasus Knight and the other Rider. Pegasus Knight swatted the wakizashi out of Utsura’s hand with a swipe of his long lance, and swiped at Utsura himself. But in a flash Utsura was wielding his even more powerful katana that he easily used to block the lance. Pegasus Knight gasped in surprise as Utsura then swung so hard a crescent wave of power ripped from the blade of the katana and slammed into him, knocking him off his feet.

            “ **Taddle Critical Finish!** ” Utsura looked back to see Rune raising his wand high over his head as it glowed with power, then he pointed it at the ground and an earthquake shook the mountain. Utsura and Kiiko were knocked off their feet as chunks of rock fell off the sides and a huge crack ripped through the middle of the plateau, right underneath Pegasus Knight. Energy surged up through the crack and covered his body. He threw his wings wide just before his body dissolved into pixels.

            Before the shaking stopped Rune ran past Utsura and grabbed the Gashat out of the air. “I got it! What was that you were saying about this flying away after somebody touches it, huh?!” he laughed triumphantly. The Gashat quivered in his hand, and for a second Rune’s hand jerked upward, but he held onto the Gashat. “Guess you’re just too weak to be able to hold onto greatness even when it’s literally right in your hand, Hidenaga!”

            To his surprise, Utsura didn’t shout an insult back or make a move to attack him. Utsura did clutch the Gashacon Tana a little tighter, but all he said was, “So what do you do now?”

            Rune stood there speechless for a second, like he hadn’t expected such a nonviolent response. When Utsura still didn’t attack he opened his inventory and pulled out a giant blue coin with an image of a transparent man in front of a city skyline. “I don’t do anything now. I won, and I’ll be going. Don’t try and stop me,” he said as he faded from sight, trying to make his exit line sound as full of contempt as he could. “Next time you’ll see how a _real_ fighter uses one of these! If you even last long enough to see me again!”

            Then he was gone, it seemed. No surprise magical attacks came, just holes in the sky peeling back to show real clouds and the edge of the sun. Kiiko ran up to Utsura and leaned on his shoulder. “Are you sure it was okay? To just let him leave with the Gashat like that?”

            “I don’t know,” was all Utsura could say. “I don’t know if he’s going to do something bad with it…I mean, somebody wanted him to have Kamen Rider stuff, like Yuuma wanted me to have mine. I feel like that person probably had a good reason for it, if Yuuma thought I could handle this.”

            “I guess we’ll see if it was the right decision,” Kiiko said gently, not judging him letting an arrogant loudmouth get away with a potent power item, just observing his thoughts.

            “We should probably get out of here while there’s still ground up this high,” Utsura said, his tone almost teasing.

            Kiiko looked up into his mask’s giant eyes, and smiled a little. “Yeah, we should. My training’s working, you _are_ getting better!” Utsura just shook his head, but couldn’t hide a faint chuckle too.

 

XXX

 

            As soon as the Game Area had completely disappeared the police were rushing onto the school grounds. The students at the bottom of the mountain, now an ordinary high school again, had hit an invisible wall as they tried to escape while the police had ben unable to get inside to help because of that same invisible wall surrounding the Game Area.

            No-one noticed Doku Dasao sneaking out of the building to blend into a crowd of his classmates. No-one much noticed him anyway, and this time it was an advantage he didn’t mind exploiting. _He_ noticed Kensei Hidenaga and Kiiko Mishiranu coming out of a side door and joining the others, Kensei giving him a cautious look as they did.

            They knew. They _had_ to know that had been him, didn’t they? But why hadn’t Kensei done more to keep him from getting away with the new Gashat other than that pathetic story that it would fly away when someone touched it? What was he planning, and what would he do to get it back?

           

XXX

 

            Doku Dasao was still wondering that when night came, and his homework was done in an hour and a half. His parents were keeping out of his way like they always did when they heard him say two words: “entrance exams.”

            Really, of course, he was studying his new prize. It was a Gashat like the one he already had, of course, and it was even from the same game series. “Taddle Quest” was written on the label, above a knight wielding a glowing magical sword. This had been the trademark Gashat used by Kamen Rider Brave, one of the CR Riders who’d stopped the previous Bugster outbreak.

            Doku’s stomach tightened up a little as held the Gashat in his hand, his eyes transfixed by the bright blue case and the detailed art of the knight on the label. This object, this _treasure_ had been the basis of a real-life hero’s powers. The fact that Brave didn’t have it anymore was scary and incredible at the same time.

            Scary because he had to ask if the Gashats of the missing Kamen Riders were all over the city, where were the Riders themselves, and why didn’t they have their power items anymore? How serious _was_ this new outbreak?

            But incredible, because right there in his hand, Doku had the thing that symbolized the power of a living legend. As he thought about that he shook with excitement and almost dropped it. With this, he could do even more incredible things than he already could. With this, he could help carry on the legacy of a missing hero.

            Then something buzzed inside his school bag, and Doku smiled lightly. He was already getting his chance.

 

XXX

 

            Not that far away, but struggling with more than his homework, Kensei kept looking down at his Gamer Driver and En En Chambara lying in easy reach in the top drawer of his desk. The thought of making some excuse to his father and going to check on Doku had occurred to him, but even if he did what would Kensei do? Try to see what Doku was doing without giving himself away, or just going up to Doku’s house and asking for a secret meeting or something?

            Then something buzzed loudly in his desk, another device Kazumono had given him, pushing those questions out of his mind for the moment. Kensei was reaching for it when his phone rang. On the screen was the all-too-familiar UNKNOWN tag, and Kensei picked it up answered. “I’m a little busy right now, Kazumono.”

            “Yes, I imagine there are a lot of important things on your mind right now, Hidenaga-san,” someone answered, but it wasn’t the voice of the Genm Corp. tech. “My name is Kyotaro Hinata, I represent the Ministry of Health.”

            “…Kazumono said he was going to let me handle this on my own.”

            “I’m sure that’s exactly what he said, but after this morning’s incident I’m also sure that you understand things are escalating too quickly. The appearance of a second Game Area in which a large number of civilians were trapped, including quite a few you know personally. That’s the case, isn’t it Hidenaga-san?”

            This Hinata person was right, a Gashat had created a mountain right out of his own school, and after the factory appearing downtown the other day there was really no hiding that the Bugsters were back. With new, bigger tricks they hadn’t had before, maybe. Soon people were going to start wanting to know what was being done about it.

            “All right. What do you want me to do?” Kensei asked in reply.

            Hinata’s reply was immediate. “I’m inviting you—and the two other new Riders—for a private meeting tomorrow. To explain why it’s in all of our best interests to cooperate. You’ll be contacted after your school lets out.”

            “I can’t tell the other two what to do,” Kensei pointed out. “They think I’m a big enough idiot as it is.”

            “We’ll take care of convincing them,” Hinata answered. “All of us stand to benefit from this. In the meantime, it sounds like you have something else demanding your attention. I look forward to speaking with you soon, Hidenaga-san.” Then without waiting for Kensei’s answer, he hung up.

            Kensei looked at the phone for a second, then slid it into his pocket and reached into his desk drawer again to pull out a triangular device made of white plastic, with a black button on the back and a bright pink pad on the opposite long side.

            He pressed the button. Then he knew where he had to go.

 

XXX

 

            Fear filled the man’s eyes, his voice stolen by the enormous shape that spread wider and wider, seeming to cover the entire world. It bubbled and slurped, moving closer to him like a huge mound of blue jelly. He swore that inside it he could see a human skull slide past inside the giant slime. And underneath, a dark purple trail was spreading over the ground and killing the grass it touched.

            Was this really the end for him?  
            “ **Taddle Quest** ,” a deep voice announced.

            “…what?”

            “ **Skill Level 2.** ”

            Then suddenly the air temperature plunged and the edge of the slime about to crash down on the man had frozen solid.

And standing in between him and the slime was a man in black and turquoise armor, icons of a snowflake and a roaring flame under the health bar on his chest armor. He wore a mask with a silver visor from which two giant cartoon eyes peered out, with a long blue plume sticking out backward from the top. In his hand was a sword with a jagged blue blade, still crackling with the power that had frozen part of the slime.

Hanging off his belt was a long white wand with a bird ornament on the top and the Taddle Quest Gashat sticking out of the bottom.

            “…Brave?” the man asked, managing to find his voice.

            The Rider didn’t answer, instead hitting a button on his sword and making the blade turn around and become a fiery orange. The slime slithered around, moving its frozen part away to the side and rearing up to try to smother them. The Rider slashed out with his sword, engulfing the blade in flame as it bit into the slime leaving blackened tissue where it touched.

            And the Rider kept dragging his sword into its body in a wide arc that carved a large hunk of the slime’s body off. It splatted against the ground and then dissolved into a stream of pixels.

            Suddenly the slime launched itself into the air like a rocket. As it came back down it spread itself out, shooting out tendrils in all directions. The Rider grabbed the monster’s intended victim by the shoulder and dragged him out of the way. One tendril smashed down on his foot as it landed and the Rider went sprawling from the sudden stop.

            The man screamed at the top of his lungs in pain. The Rider growled in rage and raised his sword over his head with the blade seeming to burn twice as fiercely. He slashed at the closest tendril and sliced it off, then charged at the slime and hacked fiercely at it again and again. “Not anymore! I don’t have to take _anybody’s_ shit anymore! _Even_ if they’re a monster!!!” he screamed, hacking off a huge hunk of its top that dissolved into pixels before it even touched the ground.

            “Now _I’m_ the one who’s strong!” he kept ranting. He slapped a button on the hilt and the blade flipped to its ice form again, then he stabbed it into the slime and started freezing the enormous jelly. “Now what _I_ say matters the most!” He yanked the sword out of the frozen slime and then kicked it hard, knocking a big chunk off that immediately dissolved. Dark energy started creeping up over his sword.

            “…Brave?” the man asked and the Rider stopped as he heard the question, then turned around. “Why are you so angry?”

            “What?”

            “You were never this angry,” the man continued. “You were always so calm before, even when things were really bad for you guys. I…my son and I, I mean, we both really looked up to you.”

            The Taddle Quest Gashat started shaking in its mounting. “You…you don’t know who I am. You don’t know what this means to me.”

            “But all the times you risked your life, even when your enemies were so strong…” the man babbled on. “You were a hero!”

            “A hero?” the Rider said. “…mister, you’re bleeding like crazy on that foot. Oh my god, did it hit you?” He stepped back and stared with eyes almost as wide as the ones in his mask. “Shit…that looks bad,” he whispered.

            As he saw the man cowering in pain, too injured to think about running away, a memory started echoing in the Rider’s mind.

 

XXX

 

            A girl was cupping his chin lightly and putting on the bravest smile anyone had ever had.

            That was what he’d always wanted, the chance to be brave, to matter for something important. She’d always been brave, but like she had so many times before she told him, “Doku-chan, you should be brave too, but you should do it because there are so many people who need help.”

            “Is that why you’re going back out there with all the monsters?” he asked, his cheeks shining with the trails of tears.

            She smiled. “There are people out there in trouble, Doku-chan. They’re hurt and they need help.”

            “No!” he’d wailed. “There’s already Kamen Riders who want to stop this! They can fight, let them do it!”

            But she shook her head, still smiling a little to reassure him. “They can’t just wait out there hoping someone finds them, Doku-chan. And _I_ can’t just stay here in a shelter knowing that there’s someone out there somewhere who needs help.”

            Then she walked out the door.

            He never saw her again.

 

XXX

 

The slime gurgled behind him and the Rider whirled around. Seeing his twin’s face for the last time in his memory, he realized he was maneuvering himself between the giant bubbling creature and the injured man as it crawled closer and left a spreading purple trail behind it.

            But as soon as he’d done it, the Taddle Quest Gashat yanked itself out of the wand on his belt. It spun end over end a few times then went flying away into the sky, to the same small dot of light that the pixels from the slime’s pieces were going. A screen appeared, showing the Gashat appearing next to a bright pink one and starting to spin slowly in place, reading “Collection Expanded” across the bottom.

            And standing there, moonlight reflecting off of his thick glasses, was Doku Dasao. “You’re not Brave,” the man gasped. “You’re a kid?”

            Doku didn’t answer for a second, staring in disbelief at the Gashat as it flew away until it was totally out of sight. He gaped at it in disbelief, then turned to the man and said, “Maybe I am, but I’m the kid who’s about to save your life.” He loaded his own Gashat and pulled back on the dial of his Gamer Cepta.

            “ **Arcana Level 2.** ” The mystical symbols on his robe flashed into sight as his regular armor appeared over him. He twisted the dial on the Gamer Cepta until the window on it showed a jet of flame.

            The slime lurched at Kamen Rider Rune, bubbling angrily as it oozed over the street. Rune aimed his wand and a blast of fire the size of a car ripped from the end, exploding as it hit the slime and sprayed bits of burnt jelly over the street that dissolved immediately.

            It gurgled angrily and reared up to throw its giant bulk at him, so Rune twisted the dial again and the picture changed to the word SLOW. A spiral of shifting colors spread from his wand and covered the slime. It seemed to be moving in slow motion as it started to rear up.

            Rune twisted the dial again and the picture changed to an ice spike. “ **Taddle Critical Finish!** ” it yelled as the bird at the end spread its wings even wider and seemed to cry out as the ground underneath the slime glowed just before an ice spike ten feet high gouged up through the middle of the slime. It seized up and twitched horribly for a second, then fell to the ground with a crash and breaking down into more streams of pixels. In another minute there was nothing left of the giant jelly creature or the trail of purple filth it had been leaving on the ground underneath it.

            “Damn,” the man breathed at the display of power he’d just seen.

“Not bad, huh?” Rune chuckled a little, twisting his wand to the side so that the man wouldn’t see that barely 10% of the energy bar on the side was still lit, though. Then he looked down at the man’s mashed foot. “Look, I’m going to call an ambulance, okay? Whatever you do, don’t stand up.”

            “Why? What are you talking abo…oh GOD!!” the man looked down and screamed.

            Rune cringed and looked away, fumbling for his phone. As he struggled to hit the numbers he wanted with gloved fingers, he realized the man he’d just saved had said something to him. “What?”

            “Who are you? What’s your name?”

            “You can call me…Kamen Rider Rune.”

            “Got a real feel for the dramatic there, huh kid?  
            “The kid who just saved your life,” Rune reminded him with an annoyed growl as he managed to enter the number.

            The man just smiled lightly at the retort.

            And down the street, Kensei Hidenaga turned and walked away unseen.

 

XXX

 

            The sound of the smoke detector woke Kensei up the morning of his fateful meeting with the Ministry of Health. He heard a panicked yell and something that sounded like a bucket of water splashing all over the floor. Apparently his father had tried to make something for breakfast that was way beyond his level again. Kensei supposed he should get up, and see if his father needed help saving the house from burning down.

            As he got up Kensei noticed there was a new message on his phone, a text from an unknown sender. It said “We’ve found out where the new Bugsters are coming from.”

            It had come with a picture of the night sky over the city, showing a purple circle whose edges bulged out in a few places, and arcs of white and grey energy whipped across its surface. Streams of pixels that had to have been the defeated slime monster were flowing up into it.

But surrounding the edge of the purple circle was a ring of ten irregular but familiar shapes. They were the molded grips of Rider Gashats like his own. And they were all as black as night.

            He’d seen those before when he’d had his meeting with Kazumono, who’d said they were extremely important. Then it clicked.

            Those were the ten Proto Gashats. The ones that had all the important information on the people who’d lost playing Kamen Rider Chronicle and disappeared.

            They were up there, in that weird hole in the sky.

            Whoever had stolen them, whoever had kidnapped the CR Riders, had put those all-important Gashats up there.

            That didn’t sound to him like something a spontaneous evolution of a virus would cause to happen. It sounded like something somebody had to have done on purpose. Who had that someone been? And why did they do it?

            He hoped the meeting with Hinata could answer a few of those questions.


	5. Enemies of Enemies

            The morning seemed…better, for some reason. The sun seemed a little brighter, the air tasted a little clearer, and his breakfast made Kensei feel a little more awake and ready for the day than usual.

            He didn’t even run into Kiiko on the way to school. Kensei’s father cried out in surprise and fell down in the front hall when he opened the front door and she’d been standing outside, waiting for Kensei to come out. She grabbed Kensei by the arm as soon as he walked out and rode to school next to him on a shiny new red bicycle that looked as if she’d just bought it.

            In the hallway before they got to their classroom, Kensei noticed Doku Dasao giving him an irritated look. At least it wasn’t, Kensei thought, a look of hatred like Doku had giving him before. He wondered if something happened.

            “What’s up?” Kensei asked gently, trying to test the waters before he said anything else.

            “Don’t act like you don’t know,” Doku replied. “Guess I’ll be seeing you and the pretty boy after school.”

            “Oh, so you’re going to that too after all?” Kiiko asked, smiling hopefully.

            Doku frowned harder. “Don’t say that like we’re friends just meeting up after school or something.”

            “I’m friends with Kensei already,” Kiiko replied. “I’m pretty good at making friends.”

            Doku just looked at her dubiously then went to the back of the room and sat down without saying another word.

            But before Kensei and Kiiko walked in, a mass of giggling girls came around the corner, time seeming to slow down as Yoshoku Kasuga walked by at the front of it, dangling his school bag carelessly over his shoulder. “I heard what you said, Mishiranu-san,” he said, sounding bored, as usual. “How’d you like to be friends with _me_? You’d be getting so many at once,” he said, indicating all the other girls over his should with a sweep of his hand. As he said it, though, the mass of girls formed themselves into a shield around him Yoshoku, glaring and hissing at Kiiko.

            She leaned over and whispered in Kensei’s ear. “That’s Sling, right?”

            “Yes, definitely,” Kensei answered, and even right then he could see the end of the blue Gashat sticking out of Yoshoku’s pants pocket.

            “They don’t seem like they think need another friend, thanks,” Kiiko said immediately, and dragged Kensei into the classroom with her.

Kensei sat down and faced forward, glad Doku couldn’t see his face. It seemed all three Riders were waiting for one of the others to make the first move on knowing each other’s identities, so nothing was actually happening.

But as soon as school was over the three of them had a conference with the Ministry of Health, the ones who’d been sponsoring the old group of Kamen Riders. Maybe they could promise something that would make peace with him, Doku, and Yoshoku.

            It seemed like they’d have enough enemies to worry about already.

 

XXX

 

            The rest of the day passed in a tense silence between the three teens who were actually Kamen Riders. Kiiko tried to chat up Doku again over lunch, but retreated to Kensei’s side when Yoshoku came by. His entourage of hopeful girls came with him, and they looked like they’d been sharpening their nails since that morning…

            A limousine picked the four of them up a few blocks from school where nobody would see them. Nobody said anything, and Kiiko sat right next to Kensei as if hoping he’d guard her in case the others tried anything sudden. Yoshoku and Doku sat opposite from them, but on the far sides of the seat, shooting pointed glances at everyone else.

            Kiiko fidgeted after a few minutes of silence. “What do you think they want to talk to us about?” she asked to break the ice.

            Doku glowered, but didn’t answer. Yoshoku, on the other hand, smirked at the question. “It’s obvious; they need us to fight these monsters for them, and this is where we get to negotiate our terms for doing their dirty work.”

            “And what do you think you’ll ask for?” Kensei asked. Yoshoku just looked him in the eye, but didn’t answer him directly.

            “Somehow I’d rather leave you in suspense for a while, Hidenaga,” Yoshoku answered. “I bet you aren’t going to ask _them_ for anything.”

            He hadn’t really thought to before Yoshoku brought it up. It was true the Ministry of Health would be asking them to risk their lives, wasn’t that worth a lot? Soldiers and police got paid. Would they get salaries? Could he get into a really good university with this?

            The limousine eventually pulled into the parking garage of a glittering skyscraper, but it didn’t have a huge logo on the side like the last time he and Kiiko had gone on a limo ride. There were a group of men in dark suits waiting by the parking space who seemed to teleport to the doors and open them at exactly the same time to let everyone out.

            “If you’ll follow us, please,” one of them said tonelessly once they were out, and walked into the hallway to the main building while the others gathered behind the teens.

            “They’re herding us,” Doku muttered.

            “Like they could stop us if we decided we don’t want to go where they want us to go,” Yoshoku chuckled.

            “Don’t be an idiot,” Kensei whispered.

            “Who are you calling an idiot?” Yoshoku hissed.

            “Anyone who thinks fighting is the answer to anything they don’t like,” Kensei whispered back.

            Yoshoku chuckled and gave a superior smile. “You sound just like your idiot brother,” he said. “And that makes a lot of sense, coming from someone who’s supposed to fight monsters.”

            “Is that all you see?” Kensei retorted.

            “What do _you_ see, if you’re so smart?” Yoshoku demanded, but Kensei didn’t answer. Yoshoku scowled and grabbed his shoulder, but one of their escorts reached out and removed his hand.

            At that Yoshoku looked up and glared at the man, whose face was totally emotionless even with a superhuman silently threatening violence. “We are here to negotiate,” the escort said. “Please don’t fight inside the building.”

            Yoshoku yanked his arm back and scowled, but followed the group into a conference room where the four of them were guided to seats across from each other on both sides while their escorts went to stand by the doors. A minute later the door opened again, and a middle-aged man in a suit came. “Thank you all for coming,” he said politely and professionally. “My name is Kyotaro Hinata, although you know that already. We would like to talk to you about getting your help in dealing with the new danger our country is clearly about to face.

            “This is not how I would prefer to be confronting this problem at all,” he sighed. “The equipment you’re using was meant to _reinforce_ the CR Riders if something like this happened, not _replace_ them.

“But it would seem someone had other plans, and manufacturing a new set of henshin gear presents us with a timeframe my organization isn’t happy with. So, I’m afraid I’m forced to ask you to help us confront these new Bugsters for us.”

            Kiiko was smiling and almost bouncing in her seat. “Of course we will, right??” she answered for the actual fighters.

            But Kensei looked at the others before he answered to gauge them. Doku frowned a little but looked away from him without saying anything. That was a little surprising after how angry and superior he’d been before. What had happened to him to make him so reserved so suddenly?

            Yoshoku, on the other hand, was smiling lightly and he had a nasty glint to his eyes. He looked like he’d already figured something out he was looking forward to springing on the rest of them.

            Hinata went on, “I thank you all for your cooperation. This is a difficult thing to ask of anyone, to say nothing of those your age—”

            “We’ve figured that out on our own,” Yoshoku interrupted him suddenly. “The question is, what can _you_ provide us? Money? Fame? Why don’t we start with stronger Gashats? We already know you can make them.”

            Hinata coughed into his hand at the brusque response. “We can offer stronger powers as they become available, _if_ you are willing to cooperate with us for the good of the nation.”

            But Yoshoku scoffed. “It’s kind of funny hearing you act like you have any bargaining power here.”

            “…what?” Hinata gaped at him, apparently not expecting such a sharp response.

            A triumphant look settled on Yoshoku’s face. “You have a new monster outbreak on your hands, and that’s why you called us all here: so you can ask for our help. But you _need_ us, because the old Kamen Riders are gone…where have they been all these times we’ve been fighting, if you had someone else to do this job?”

            Hinata coughed and tried to compose himself. “Based on the latest incidents where their Gashats were discovered and then flew into a seeming portal in the sky, we have reason to consider that’s where the CR Riders are located as well.”

            “Right, right,” Yoshoku said, waving his hand as this confirmed what they’d all probably been guessing. “Which leads to the obvious conclusion: you have nothing to bargain with because you have no-one else to solve this problem. And because you have no-one else to solve this problem, you can’t afford _not_ to equip us with everything you have.

            “And I’d like to hear more about that before we talk about anything else, Hinata-san,” Yoshoku smiled a little wider.

            Hinata tried to recover his original plan for the discussions. He looked around at the teens he’d obviously been hoping would help in this crisis out of the goodness of their hearts. At Kiiko who’d fallen silent and was looking at Kensei to see how to react. But Kensei looked over at Doku seeming to see how _he’d_ react, but Doku frowned harder and avoided his eyes. Yoshoku was grinning now as he saw he’d taken control of the situation away from a high-ranking official.

            “Sir,” Kensei spoke up, trying to slide things away from Yoshoku’s snide demands, “do your people have any answers about the other Kamen Riders? Why we might’ve found their Gashats, and why there are more Gashats up in the sky? Where the Bugsters went after we defeated them? It didn’t look like they just died.”

            His attempt to get the conversation back on track made Yoshoku chortle to himself. “As I said, we believe…we _hope,_ that’s where the CR Riders are,” Hinata answered. “With luck their Gashats that you’ve been finding are going back to them, to help them with whatever’s happening inside.”

            Silence covered the room again, apparently that was all Hinata knew about it. For the first time, almost startling the rest of them, Doku spoke up. “What’s next? I mean, when can we expect to get our hands on some stronger gear?”  
            “Soon,” Hinata replied. “A set of Level 3 Gashats are nearing completion. You’ll all be notified as soon as they’re ready to be used.”

            Doku’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “Just Level 3? Are you kidding?”

            “Please be patient,” Hinata tried to assure them. “Nearly all of the data for the Rider Gashats was lost, and it needs to be developed almost from scratch.”

            Yoshoku got up. “Yeah, well, when they are, you let me know. When that happens, I’ll let you know what else I’d like out of this.”

            “You’re just _leaving_?” Kiiko asked in disbelief.

            Yoshoku looked back at her, his face expressionless. “I’ll help, but I won’t work with _them_. You want me, I work alone.” He started for the exit. “When those new stronger Gashats are ready, let me know. You obviously know how to reach me.”

            He walked out of the room, and after a second Doku got up and followed him, looking over his shoulder at Kiiko and Kensei as he went. But then Yohsoku opened the door and left, without even the guards at the door trying to stop the two of them.

            As soon as the door clicked shut behind them were gone Hinata gave a long sigh, like he’d been holding it in for the whole conversation. “I _knew_ that would happen,” he muttered then looked up at the two fo them. “Hidenaga-san, Mishiranu-san…thank you for staying. I’d hoped you would.”

            “Oh?”

            The ministry’s representative nodded. “It’s the same reason I called you last night. We here and at Genm Corporation have done some light observation of you and the other two. Come up with some light psych profiles.”

            “In case you couldn’t talk us into helping diplomatically,” Kensei finished for him.

            “Yes, exactly,” Hinata nodded. “And we had you designated as the…‘reasonable’ one. Which is why we’d like to request something of you.”

            “And what’s that?” Kensei replied, letting Hinata guide the conversation.

            Hinata steepled his fingers and didn’t answer for a minute, probably unsure of asking for any other favors after being shut down as hard as he had by Yoshoku. Finally he said, “We would _greatly appreciate it_ if you would be willing to be our eyes and ears in regards to the other Kamen Riders. In exchange we would be willing to offer a few certain benefits, starting with going down to Genm now, and tuning your Gashat to add a new feature.”

            Kiiko looked over at Kensei, smiling at him hopefully as she waited for his answer. After a minute of that, Kensei answered. “ _And_ getting my new Gashat first, right?”

            Immediately Hinata’s face lit up. “Why don’t we finalize the arrangement on the ride over?”

 

XXX

 

            The weird purple hole in the sky was opening. It was almost invisible against the bright orange of the setting sun and the million and one glowing windows that caught its light, but not to Yoshoku’s sharpened eyes. Something was coming, he could already tell. Something _big_.

            The hole in the sky widened itself even more, and Yoshoku could feel the Gashat in his pocket vibrating faintly, reacting to so much power so close by.

            And if he moved fast enough, this time he was going to end up even more powerful.

            He pulled a white rectangular device out of his pocket with a round pink panel on one side, and pushed the button on the opposite side. A holographic display appeared, and in it he could see the glittering edges of a new Game Area crawling over any street and building in the path.

            It was time to go to work.

            “ **Bang Bang Sunset! Quickdraw Level 2** ,” his Gamer Pamaka announced, and Yoshoku sucked in a breath as he felt the familiar power traveling from his Gashat to cover his entire body. The technology had already shown that it could be so much more powerful, but even with what he had now he felt invincible.

            “ **Open: Cruiser. Stagebike**.” The weird steampunk motorcycle with its wooden wheels formed out of a digital wireframe next to him as the armored cowboy hat finished screwing itself into place above his mask, completing his change into Kamen Rider Sling.

            He jumped into the seat of his Cruiser and rode off.

 

XXX

 

            He wasn’t the only one hurrying to the strange Game Area spreading across itself over the city streets like an infection. The buildings started disappearing into a range of steep, craggy mountains made of red rock, stabbing up out of the ground like giant teeth. Rivers of lava flowed where streets had been only a little while before. Huge bat-like monsters circled in the skies, searching for prey.

            And striding through the bleak valley, not seeming to notice the desolation around it at all was a big white Cocobobo bird with Kamen Rider Rune on its back. He flicked through the selection of spells on his wand wondering what would be best against the menaces of this Game Area.

            But he knew this game, and knew it wasn’t meant to be beaten by just one player. That didn’t mean it was impossible, of course, if that one player was clever, a little sneaky and above all, well-prepared.

            And if nothing else, he was that last one.

            Rune pulled back on the reins and the bird stopped. He could just see the edge of a golden glow from behind some rocks on a hill in the distance. It had to be another Rider Gashat. But between him and the hill was a circling flock of those three bat-winged creatures—dragons is what they were. As soon as he got any closer they’d attack, and he needed to be sure he was ready for when they did.

            Then he heard the roar of a powerful engine, and looked over his shoulder to see Kamen Rider Sling coming up from behind, on a huge motorcycle made of plates of wrought iron. Rune thought for sure it was going to draw the attention of the dragons, but then someone else stepped into sight. She had on blue jeans with fringe and a cropped shirt showing off the dark green skin of her abdomen, with fringe hanging off the sleeves of her dark red shirt too. She had long blonde hair and ruby red lips, but they took up almost the bottom half of her face, and one eye was bigger than the other.

Ringing the middle of her black cowboy hat were pointed yellow teeth. Strapped to her black vest were sticks of dynamite, and with just one hand she held up a rifle that had a giant pair of lips on the end of the barrel.

            She fired a blazing green shot that exploded in front of Rune, making his mount rear up and shriek in surprise. Sling leaned away from the explosion and skidded to a hard halt. In the blink of an eye he’d whipped out his Gamer Pamaka and had it aimed at the bizarre woman’s head.

            “Howdy, boys!” she said to the Riders and pursed her giant lips flirtatiously. Both of them recoiled in disgust. “Looks like y’all are here to play a li’l ol’ game with me!”

            “And who the hell are _you_ supposed to be?” Sling demanded, shifting his weapon to her.

            “She’s not supposed to be in this game,” Rune mumbled without realizing he had until after he’d said it.

            “What??” Sling snapped.

            “I think I recognize this place,” Rune explained. “It’s from Drago Knight Hunter Z, where you’re a knight that hunts giant monsters. There’s no crazy cowboys in it.”

            The woman laughed, but kept her weapon trained on them. “So who the hell _are_ you, then?” Sling demanded.

            “Y’all can just call me Candy…Crimson Candy, that’s the color I leave people I don’t like!” she laughed. “Like _you_ , Kamen Rider Sling!”

            Sling looked over at Rune. “Well? Have you heard of _her_?” he asked.

            Rune did a double-take. “Are you asking _me_ for help?”

            “Is your memory that bad?” Sling asked.

            “No, I’ve heard of her,” Rune answered. “She’s from…she’s one of the last bosses from Bang Bang Sunset. She didn’t look quite that _unique_ though.”  
            She laughed at his remark. “Just means ah’m better’n evah, sugah! Let’s see how good _you_ are, though!” Candy suddenly whipped her rifle straight up and fired off another giant glowing bullet straight up at the trio of circling dragons. Right in the middle of them it exploded with a blinding star burst.

            The dragons screamed angrily at the sudden explosion and went diving away, then came swooping back and forth down through the air angrily spewing puffs of fire that glinted off their dark red scales. Then they landed on the ground inbetween the Riders and that glow in the distance that was their goal. Candy smiled, exposing teeth much to wide for a human mouth, gave the Riders a mock salute and stepped into a shadow, vanishing from sight.

            The dragons weren’t the enormous kingdom-wrecking types mentioned in legends. Each was maybe eight feet from head to tail. But they darted back and forth along the ground, seeming to glare at the Riders with their dark beady eyes and snapping their jaws almost as if challenging them to make the first move.

            Perhaps not surprisingly it was Sling who made it. He hit the B button on his Pamaka and a giant shot collected at the barrel and as it hummed with energy he squeezed the trigger. It ripped from the barrel and flew down the valley at the dragons; the first two saw it coming and jumped out of the way but the one behind the others saw nothing coming thanks to their wide wings in his way and seemed to gape in disbelief for a second before Sling’s bullet knocked him onto his scaly back.

            In a second he was up again, his face blackened on one side and a wing bent and useless, but he and the other two dragons each raised their heads and blew fireballs down the valley. Sling gulped and started to turn his bike around when suddenly there was a rushing wind and a wall of ice spikes appeared out of the ground in front of them. The fireballs hit them and a blast of steam went up as fire and ice ran into each other.

            Sling gasped as his goggles fogged up. “You idiot!” he heard Rune yell at him. “You can’t just attack the enemies in this game head-on! They’re way too strong for that!”

            “So what do _you_ suggest, huh?!”

            “I was going to lay a trap, but thanks to—”

            He was interrupted by three angry shrieks at the same time as the dragons charged down the valley.

 

XXX

 

            From the hill where the Rider Gashat was waiting, Crimson Candy watched as the two Kamen Riders scattered as the trio of dragons charged them, her rifle leaned on her shoulder.

            “All right honey,” she murmured. “If’n those Riders get past your buddies down there, I’m-a countin’ on you to make sure they don’t get their hands on this thingy, y’hear?” she said and jerked her thumb at the glowing Gashat hanging in the air behind them.

            The dark figure on the hill just growled in answer.

            “I’m gonna need more than that,” she said, a hint of menace in her voice as her hand tightened around the butt of her rifle.

            “I said I understand,” the other voice growled.

            Crimson Candy laughed. “Good!...Just don’t forget who the new bosses are around here, sug!”

            He grunted in reply.

            “See ya soon, Graphite honey!” she called over her shoulder as she disappeared.

 

XXX

 

            A dragon lunged forward and knocked Sling down with just the tip of his wing. Sling fired his gun in an arc as he fell, riddling it with holes. It may have gotten him the first time, but it wouldn’t be flying again.

            The dragon reared up on his hind legs and spewed fire down at him. Sling somersaulted backward and it set the edge of  his leather poncho on fire, but he jumped at the dragon and did the most reckless thing of his young life as he shoved his gun straight into the dragon’s mouth, slammed the B butt on the top with his hand and fired off a giant energy bullet that blew the dragon onto his back.

            As Sling took aim and prepared to blast the stunned dragon again suddenly he was yanked off his feet as another one of the dragons suddenly came up behind him and sank its teeth into his poncho and yanked him off the ground. With one swipe of its giant claw it knocked the gun out of his hand.

            Meanwhile, Rune lifted his wand and shot a blast of smoke into the face of the last dragon as it came flying down at him. The dragon screeched, surprised by the sudden cloud around it but Rune didn’t waste any time feeling good about himself. Instead he twisted the dial on his wand and pointed it at the ground. Power flashed from it and a giant hole formed in the ground.

            The smoke was starting to clear, and Rune twisted the dial on his wand and aimed it high. It flashed, and a small tornado started blowing above the dragon, forcing it down into the hole Rune had made. The dragon squirmed and pumped his wings but Rune concentrated on the tornado and it got stronger, even as the power meter on the side of his wand dipped lower and lower.

            The dragon disappeared bit by bit into the hole, and then with the last of his energy Rune aimed the Gamer Cepta up at the side of the hill next to him and a ball of light shot from the bird ornament on the end. The rock cracked and a small avalanche of rocks rolled down and covered the hole with the dragon inside. He doubted it would the for long, but at least he’d bought himself a minute to open his inventory.

Three icons of a red coin that showed a man holding up a glittering wand spun out and he plucked the coin out of the first one. It disintegrated and the energy meter on his wand shot up to the top. Rune let out a sigh of relief, but he hoped he wouldn’t have to use up the few coins he’d found like this too soon…

He looked over to see how Sling was doing, and the cowboy Rider yelped in surprise as he dangled by his poncho from the jaws of one dragon while the other one tried to bite him on the leg. Sling suddenly braced himself against the dragon he was hanging from and pushed off with both feet, swinging up and kicking the other dragon on the chin. It was only dazed for a second but he’d kicked hard enough the end of his poncho tore off.

Sling dropped and ran for his gun. Rune almost felt like going to help, if only to be able to rub the arrogant gunslinger’s face in needing a pathetic nerd to save his life. But the hole he’d buried the other dragon in was starting to rumble, and Run still had an enemy of his own to finish off.

“ **Taddle Critical Bomber!** ” The picture on his wand showed a falling rock, and a jagged boulder of red stone indeed appeared in the air over the pit just before it exploded open and the dragon stuck his head out. The boulder dropped right on top of the pit and exploded loudly, cracking the ground around it. A second later a ribbon of pixels floated up out of the pit. His plan worked perfectly.

Now, maybe it was time to see if Sling needed his help after all.

 

XXX

 

He reached out for his Pamaka but one dragon suddenly snapped his jaws out and almost took off his hand. Sling flinched back, then suddenly jumped and threw a spinning kick that caught the monster hard on the cheek. The other lunged for him and Sling turned around and punched it with all his might, knocking the dragon’s head back for a second.

But immediately the monster faced him again and charged Sling. He threw himself to the side to avoid being trampled by the scaly creature, then gasped and rolled along the ground to get out of the way as the other one tried to bite down on his knee.

            Damn it! He was supposed to be strong now, wasn’t he? They made these Kamen Riders to be able to fight things nobody else could. And he wasn’t weak to begin with, he knew how to fight for real, unlike that idiot Kensei Hidenaga who only knew anything about play-fighting from his stupid school club.

            Sling suddenly broke into a run and tried to jump past one dragon to get where his gun lay. But the monster seemed to be expecting it and headbutted him in the stomach, knocking him to the ground again. His poncho flew up, showing his health bar was almost half gone.

            One of the scaly creatures scrambled along the ground at him and breathed a cloud of fire at the prone Kamen Rider. Sling lay there on the ground seeming to accept his fate as the cloud got closer and closer, then at the last second he rolled aside, the fire singing his back and taking another mark off his health bar.

            But then he threw a handful of red dust off the ground into the monster’s eyes making it roar in anger and spray flame in an arc around its body.

            Sling was already off and running for his weapon. The other dragon ran into his way but Sling jump-kicked it as hard on the chin as he could. The monster staggered back from his attack…

            …then a red beam of energy ripped down the valley and blasted it into a cloud of pixels. The dragon was catapulted into the air and as it came down someone else stepped onto the battlefield, the katana held over his head already glowing with bright green power. He sliced from head to tail with one stroke and it exploded into two clouds of pixels that started lifting away into the sky.

            “For such a goody-good, you sure took your time getting here!” Sling snapped as he picked up his gun. Standing there, his blade still sizzling from the power of his last attack, was Kamen Rider Utsura.

            “Maybe I was learning things when you two thought you already had it all figured out and decided to cut class,” Utsura retorted, then turned to face the last dragon.

            Before, the monsters had looked angry. Eager to fight. This one saw three Kamen Riders looking back at him now, and stood there silently, assessing them and trying to guess their intent.

            Then Sling tapped the buttons on top of his gun suddenly in rapid sequence and squeezed the trigger. A long hissing snake shot from the barrel and sank its fangs into the dragon’s neck. A shooting star ripped from Rune’s wand, and Utsura dragged the tip of his sword along the ground and sent a wave of green power shooting across the ground.

            Both shots hit the dragon at the same time and it jerked suddenly before it dissolved and went to join the others they’d already defeated. “So…is that all this game has to throw at us?” Sling asked.

            “Of course not,” Rune muttered.

            “Indeed not,” said a deep, distorted voice. From the hill where they could see the glow of the Gashat that was creating their surroundings, a dark shape suddenly shot high into the air and came down in front of them with a thundering impact that made the Kamen Riders stagger around off-balance for a few seconds.

            It was another monster, with bright green scales but standing up straight like a man, almost nine feet tall. His head tapered into a ring of spines almost like the points on a crown, and his face was nearly featureless except for shallow indentations where his eyes should’ve been and a short beak for a nose, with ropy tendrils hanging down the sides of his face. On his shoulder was the skull of a lizard-like creature, like some kind of trophy. His left hand had white fur sprouting from the elbow and his right hand was covered in bright red scales instead of green.

            And in that hand was a spear with a long point on each end, made from a giant fanged tooth a few feet long.

            “I am Graphite, first of the line of dragons,” he said. “And you men are not welcome to our treasures.”

            Then without warning he stabbed the tip of his spear into the ground which cracked with glowing red fissures.

           

XXx

 

            Sling jumped back and slapped in a code on the buttons on the top of his Pamaka. Then slapped the A button repeatedly for rapid fire from the ring of smaller barrels around the main one. His shots made tiny explosions all over Graphite’s thick green armor.

            Exactly what he’d been expecting happened next, though: Graphite recovered and turned to attack him. The dragon-man’s spear extended out to twice its length and raking him across the chest.

            The cowboy Rider slammed into the ground but he’d been expecting the attack and somersaulted to ride out some of the force of the hit. He got up and ran as Graphite made another stab that smashed the ground. As Sling went as fast as he could he slammed the B button on his gun over and over until he launched a giant energy bullet that exploded against Graphite’s head.

            “This isn’t going to be easy,” Rune said while Graphite was distracted. “But I think I know what to do…you go up and fight him face-to-face to get his attention.”

            Utsura shook his head. “I’m supposed to get up close to that guy? No thanks! I’m tough but I’m not invincible!”

            “Of course you’re not at just Level 2,” Rune muttered. “But it’ll give me a second to set something up.”

            But instead Utsura reached down to his belt and pushed the trigger button on his Gashat twice. His sword turned into a wireframe that melted out of sight, then an icon appeared in front of him that he touched, and another weapon formed in front of him.

            It was a curved bow grip that was made out of a blue plastic-like material, just like the rest of their weapons. And just like the rest of their weapons it had a pair of A and B buttons on the side. A quiver of arrows formed on his back.

            “Where did you get that?” Rune demanded. “They talked about it but they never added bow combat to En En Chambara!”

            “This is what I got for staying and listening to the whole lecture,” Utsura answered. He took off running sideways from where Graphite was standing and pulled back a hand need the bow like he was drawing the string and a glowing arrow appeared next to it. Utsura let go and the arrow shot out and slammed into Graphite, knocking the giant dragon-man back on his feet.

            Again he recovered quickly, and stared down at Utsura and whirling his fanged spear at his side. “Almost impressive,” he said. “But I’ve beaten warriors far more experienced than you in less time than it takes me to say it.”

            But as soon as Graphite finished talking Utsura was already off and running, drawing another arrow without having to touch his quiver. Just before he released his next shot he squeezed the A button on the bow with his other hand and as it flew at Graphite it flashed and split into _five_ arrows. Graphite actually gasped in surprised as they all hit him before he could dodge them.

The cluster of arrows exploded against his armor and staggered him for a second. And before he recovered there was BOOM as one of Sling’s giant cannon-like bullets ripped from another direction and blew up against Graphite’s chest. The giant dragon-man staggered and crashed into the side of a hill, a giant crack forming down the side the force he hit it with.

But then Graphite roared “Extreme Dragon Sword!” He spun his giant fanged weapon sending a whirling disc of black energy at the Kamen Riders. Utsura and Sling jumped in two different directions and were still sent flying by the awesome power of Graphite’s attack as it hit the ground and exploded.

They hit the ground and immediately a third of their health bars blinked out. “We all have to bring him down together!” Rune yelled. “That’s how this game is meant to be played!”

“And what were you gonna do before that seemed like an option?!” Sling shouted.

“I had a plan,” Rune replied, then quietly added, “but it’s too dangerous to use with other people around.”

“There’s no people around,” Sling retorted.

“Yes, there are,” Rune whispered.

“Can we argue the dictionary later?!” Utsura interrupted. He pulled out the Gashat from his belt and plugged it into a slot on his bow instead.

Rune aimed his wand as Graphite started spinning his weapon to charge up another attack. “You in, or what?” he asked. Sling grunted but pointed his gun at the monster too.

“ **Unity Critical Finish!!!** ” the voice of all their henshin gear said at the same time. Graphite threw another of his whirling energy attacks at the three of them, twice as big as before, but at the same time all of the Riders fired back.

A flurry of shooting starts shot out of Rune’s wand, a sizzling fireball from the barrel of Sling’s gun. Utsura drew and fired arrow after arrow with his arm moving so fast it was nothing but a red and yellow blur. Their barrage pushed through the energy of Graphite’s attack and tore into the dragon-man himself. Shafts of light broke through his body from the inside, then he just burst and floated away with the other dragons they’d defeated.

“Impressive,” Utsura panted.

“Yeah?” Sling panted as well. “Don’t get used to it.”

Utsura didn’t say anything else to him, but he turned to Rune to see how he was reacting to their victory as a group.

But the other Rider was totally silent. An icon appeared in front of him and he reached into it and pulled out a big yellow coin showing a silhouette of a man running. It disintegrated away, and suddenly Rune was running up the hill toward the Gashat at blinding speed.

 

XXX

 

By the time he got to the top of the hill Rune’s speed was fading. And that been the only superspeed coin he’d managed to save, but it didn’t matter. The other Riders would never catch up to him in time.

Slowly he approached the golden Gashat hanging in the air in front of him, DRAGO KNIGHT HUNTER Z written on the label just like he’d been expecting. Slowly he reached out to touch it, as if fully expecting it to fly away this time.

As soon as he touched it two huge words appeared over his head: GAME CLEAR and a digitized fanfare played.

Right away the volcanic hills started to peel away and reveal the ordinary city streets they’d replaced before. The Gashat twitched in Rune’s hand then it did indeed go flying into the purple hole in the sky that had appeared again. That rectangular window that said “Collection Expanded” appeared in the sky too, and in the top right corner the golden Drago Knight Hunter Z Gashat started spinning in place along with the others.

With one last look up, Rune walked down the hill and vanished into the city before the other Riders could catch up to him.

 

XXX

 

As the pixels of the Dragon Knight Hunter Gamer Area continued to fade out, Crimson Candy watched as she sat on a concrete staircase leading to a scenic overlook, her rifle still leaned against her shoulder. After a minute someone came down the stairs, her long black gown seeming to flow down them.

“So,” said the newcomer, whose flesh was pulled tight on her face making it seem like little more than a skull underneath her waves of platinum blonde hair and five-tiered, ruby-studded golden crown. “They managed it after all.”

“Rune was the one who figured it out for them,” Candy explained, her Southern mannerisms totally gone. “He’ll be one to keep an eye on.”

“Surprising, to hear that coming from you,” replied the skull-faced queen.

Candy chuckled. “Fine, this proves they’ll _all_ be ones to watch.”

The queen flexed long bony fingers and made rings with ridiculously huge emeralds jangle together. “Let’s hope we can move fast enough.”  
            Candy nodded, her smile gone. “Let’s hope we can.”


	6. The Presumption of New Strain??

 

            The moon seemed to shine a murky, bloody red light down over the decayed concrete towers around them. But they were in way too much of a hurry to notice the crumbling walls or shattered windows.

            Utsura pushed the trigger button on En En Chambara and the icons on his chest changed from swords to a bow and an arrow, at the same time his new weapon appeared in his hand. He looked back and fired over his shoulder at the police car bearing down on him. It had a bull’s horns on top of its front grill, grey skulls on the sides of its lightbar and he thought for sure he saw two giant red eyes behind the windshield.

            The arrow smashed through the car’s windshield, and the car itself exploded in a giant fireball that had bull-faced demons roaring in it. But out of the fireball jumped a blue blur.

            It was a boxy blue humanoid robot with the cap and golden star badge of a police officer.

Instead of feet he had small tank treads, but instead of hands he hand a parabolic dish the size of a dinner plate on one wrist and a gun barrel on the other. “You’re coming with me, lawbreaker,” he said, then immediately contradicted himself by shooting a cascading beam from the dish. It ripped into the corner of a corner and sent it crashing down into the one next to it.

            Utsura knew better than to actually expect any kind of mercy from this villain anyway; he recognized the robot as Officer Lock, one of the boss enemies of the game Bang Bang Shooting. Maybe not the most impressive of names, but he still had to respect Lock’s firepower.

            As he ran he spotted someone standing between the rotting buildings, a teenage girl in a black school uniform, pointing with a strange but bright glow around her finger. Utsura followed her hand and saw a dark blue glow peeking out of a broken window of a building on the side of a T-junction. Straining his eyes he could see a dark blue Rider Gashat with “BANG BANG SHOOTING” written on the top of the the label.

            “Halt!” Officer Lock yelled again and fired his laser again. Right at the building hiding the Gashat.

            Utsura gasped and hit the trigger on En En Chambara again, and his bow and quiver changed into wireframes and deleted themselves. The icons on his chest changed back into swords. He couldn’t let the building collapse: it could take days to dig through it and find the Gashat in there. And that was too much time for someone else to find it too.

            Suddenly his katana was in his hand and the blade became a wide green blur as it swung out and deflected the laser up into the sky, smashing off the top corner of the old building.

            “Ah, damn…If Kiiko finds out I needed all that Iaijutsu practice after all,” Utsura groaned, but then saw his crazy friend smirking as she stood between a pair of buildings at him.

            But she wasn’t the only one around besides Officer Lock. A figure in blue armor, a brown leather poncho whipping around his shoulders, jumped over Utsura then. “Have to move faster than that if you want to come in first, Samurai-san!” jeered Kamen Rider Sling as he ran for the door of the building.

            “You’re BOTH under arrest!” Officer Lock shouted and shot something from the gun barrel on his other arm. It was a small missile, but Utsura doubted it was any less dangerous than Officer Lock’s giant laser.

            The missile screamed through the air and as Sling gripped the front door it was just about to hit him. But suddenly it exploded in midair and as the cloud of smoke cleared, Utsura could see Sling standing there with his gun draw and the barrel still smoking from the shot that had destroyed the missile. Maybe he was a pain in the ass, but Sling was undeniably master of the fast draw.

            “You’re pretty slow for a super fighting robot,” Sling scoffed.

            “All the latest technology was used to build me,” Officer Lock retorted. “I’m the perfect fighting machine.”

            “Technology’s only as good as the people who make it,” Sling said. “I challenge you to a standoff.”

            “I refuse!” Officer Lock yelled and fired both of his weapons at once. “Lawbreakers like you deserve no courtesies!”

            But the words were barely out of his mouth before a storm of small bullets riddled his body. The light in his eyes went out and his arms dropped heavily to his sides. Over the noise of all the shooting could just be heard the words “ **Bang Bang Critical Bomber!** ” Officer Lock twisted as electricity racked his body for a second then broke down into pixels and floated away.

            “Top that, Hidenaga!” Sling laughed.

            “That was good shooting,” Utsura admitted. But his voice came from above. Sling whirled around to see Utsura standing in an upstairs window with the glowing Rider Gashat in his hand just before it flew away.

            “You…!” Sling snarled furiously. “Don’t you dare mock me!”

            “Do you automatically think I’m making fun of you for beating a strong enemy like that?” Utsura asked as the wrecked city street started peeling away as it always did when they found the source of the Game Area, revealing the normal city underneath.

            “You snuck past me to steal the prize! What else am I supposed to think?!”

            “Maybe think about why we’re worried about letting you have it,” Utsura said quietly.

            “You already know how strong these monsters can get! Your brother died trying to fight them!” Sling yelled at him even as Utsura jumped through the fading wall next to him to the roof of the building next to it. “And you’re just letting power go! You’re an idiot just like he was!”

            Part of Utsura wanted to go back down there and shut Sling’s mouth with his fists, but he’d been taught better. Exhibitions were one thing, but getting into a fight wasn’t something you did lightly. If someone called you out just because he thought he could prove how tough he was by beating you, he’d already proven how weak and desperate he really was.

            “I meant what I said about the good shooting,” Utsura said again as he slipped away.

           

XXX

 

            After Utsura left the rest of the dissolving Game Area and a fuming Sling behind he saw the familiar window in the sky that signaled one of the old Gashats going back to wherever it needed to be.

            The Gashat he’d just claimed formed in the empty space between Taddle Quest and Drago Knight Hunter Z, but that wasn’t the only new addition to the window display.

            Dancing along the bottom were three chibi-style figures, and after a second he recognized them: they were Ex-Aid, Brave, and Snipe, the previous Kamen Riders, in their bulky white Level 1 armor. All of three of them had ^_^-style expressions in their giant goggle eyes, and were making the peace symbol with both hands as they danced back and forth along the bottom of the window.

            Then it was gone, and he pulled the Gashat out of his belt. As always it let out a sigh that sounded like “gashoooooooon.” The window winked out at the same time, but as silly as it had been, Kensei hoped it meant they were making progress. He hoped it meant they were going to get the other Kamen Riders back soon.

The ones who knew what they were doing.

 

XXX

 

            Kensei’s stomach tightened some as he opened the door to his house and already heard voices in conversation sometime. He was afraid his mother had come by for some reason, and that any minute they’d bring up one of the reasons they were splitting up, and one thing would lead to another, and a cold silence would be there for the rest of the night.

            But then he recognized the voice of the lady talking to his father.

            It wasn’t his mother.

            After he took off his shoes, set down his bag and came around the corner he saw a very familiar teen girl in a black uniform like his own, grinning and chatting with Soichiro Hidenaga at the dinner table.

            “Oh, hi Kensei-kun!” his father called out and waved him over to an empty chair. Kensei sat down, but looked over at the girl a little suspiciously. “You should’ve told me you were having company, I could’ve cleaned up a little!”

            “Yeah, I would’ve liked to have known too!” Kensei laughed and looked over at her. “What’s the occasion, Kiiko?”

            She grinned back obliviously. “I came by to check on your training!”

            Kensei’s father sipped some coffee. “Training? Oh, did you join Kensei’s club?” he asked.

            “Not really, sir!” Kiiko smiled. “I’m helping him make sure he gets good at video games!” She turned to him then. “Where’s the PortPlay they gave to you? Let me check on your progress.”

            Soichiro sipped loudly on his coffee then to get their attention. “Kensei, I hope you haven’t been neglecting your schoolwork to play video games…”

            “No sir!” Kiiko said and held up a hand defensively. “We do this after school! We talk for a long time about them!”  
            “I’m not going to quit school to be a tournament player or anything, I promise,” Kensei tried to reassure his father. “Kiiko and I do hang out and play games sometimes after school. That’s not so bad is it, having a new friend, right? And this means I’m talking to _girls_ too, like you’re always saying I should, _right_?”

            Kensei’s father looked back at him without saying anything but going for his coffee mug again. He put it to his mouth but it was already empty so he set it down again with a shrug. “Well, don’t tell your mother you’re playing so many games, okay? Even if you are making a new friend that way.”

            “What do you mean, tou-san?”

            “You’re spending next week at her house, remember? Don’t tell me you forgot.”

            “I won’t,” Kensei said, even though he had. School and making new friends had hardly been his only priorities.

            Soichiro got up to refill his coffee cup, and as soon as she was out of the room Kensei leaned over and whispered, “Kiiko, usually you don’t just invite yourself over to your friend’s house and let yourself in.”

            “I didn’t let myself in, your father let me in,” she said as if she didn’t notice his point at all. “Besides, I’m not here as your friend, I’m here as your trainer!” She grabbed for his bag and yanked out the portable gaming system Genm Corp. had given him—at Kiiko’s insistence—before he could stop her.

            “You know, friends don’t just help themselves to your stuff, either,” Kensei grumbled.

            “Yes they do,” Kiiko replied without looking up from the screen as she started up the PortPlay. “And you don’t mind because they’re your friends.” She nodded as she saw the title screen of the game that was loaded. “More En En Chambara. That’s your main one, yeah, it’s important to be good at that…wait, 00:01:41? That’s all?? Have you even recharged the batteries on this _once_?”

            Kensei held up his hands. “Kiiko, please. Every single day after school, when there hasn’t been a new Game Area, you’ve been taking me to one arcade after another to practice. I have to keep up with school too, right?”

            “School?! How can you think about that when we have to save the world??” she asked as if it was the craziest question she’d ever heard.

            “QUIET,” Kensei snapped.

            “Is everything okay in there, kids?” Soichiro called.

            “Yeah dad, we’re fine!” Kensei called back, putting a hand over Kiiko’s mouth before she could be the one who answered. “We’re just talking a little about video games. Kiiko can’t get enough!”

            She indignantly licked the inside of his hand to try to get Kensei to move it, but he was indignant enough to ignore it. “Quiet down, okay?” he frowned at her. “He doesn’t know yet, and you don’t need to be the one who tells him.”

            Kiiko glared at Kensei over his hand, and started playing En En Chambara herself.

 

XXX

 

            Almost the instant he’d finished dialing the number, someone picked up.

            “This is the Ministry of Health. How can we assist you, Hidenaga-san?”

            “Uh! Hi! I’m…reporting in,” Kensei answered the representative.

            “Proceed.”

            “…right. Uh, Yoshoku Kasuga not seen at school today at all. Noticed some of his admirers around asking each other if any of them knew where he was. Suspect he might be planning revenge, after I beat him to a Rider Gashat yesterday. End message.”

            The rep chuckled lightly. “No need to be so formal, Hidenaga-san. We’re not in a James Bond film.”

            “…right. Sorry.”

            The rep chuckled again and Kensei thought he heard him tapping away at a keyboard. “Do you have anything else to report, Hidenaga-san?”

            “Ah, well, still nothing new to report on Doku Dasao,” Kensei answered. “He’s been at school but he’s avoided me any time I’ve tried to say a word to him. Still can’t explain why he ran away from us to make sure he got the Drago Knight Hunter Gashat, let alone why he used up a power-up item for that speed.”

            Another few seconds of key tapping. “Anything else to report?”

            “Not at the moment.”

            “Keep us updated,” said the rep, then hung up.

            A minute passed and Kensei heard dial tone then put his phone down. He’d been hoping to get some word for how things were happening on their end, like when those new, more powerful Gashats would be ready. The guy answering the phone probably wouldn’t be able to tell him that, though.

            Kensei joined the procession of students filing out of Anagakuen, looking around one last time for any sign of Yoshoku Kasuga. But there was nothing, not even a telltale crowd of fangirls pushing through the students around Yoshoku.

            More to his surprise, Kiiko was nowhere to be seen either. Didn’t she have some grueling “training” to put him through?

            Still, he supposed even she had things to do that didn’t involve him. Even if she was weird, everyone had things going on.

            He kept going when he got to the edge of campus and then down two blocks to the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. Just in front of the building was a shiny but small red car with the license tag Kensei had been told to look for. He didn’t need to search for it after all, since as soon as he turned into the parking lot a woman got out of the righthand door.

            She had on the tallest heels Kensei could remember seeing on a woman’s feet, slacks, an orange blouse and a dressy white button-up jacket. She had shorter hair than he remembered and the small lines in her cheeks seemed deeper, but that was a good thing, right? Showed she was dealing well with her life even if she was splitting up with her husband.

            “Kensei- _kuuuuun_!” she called out as she grinned and waved at him.

“Hi, kaa-san!” he called back. It was humiliating but he tried to remind himself this was how everyone’s mom acted. But then she said “It was nice of you to invite your friend to dinner!”

Then his stomach tightened as Kiiko got out of the car and waved too.

 

XXX

 

Kensei’s mother and the friend he _hadn’t_ invited pushed open the doors at a brightly-lit restaurant whose sign declared it to be “Jungle Karma Pizza.” It was pretty new but his classmates who’d been there apparently thought all the options for pizza at that place were pretty interesting. The decorations—wallpaper showing rows and rows of trees with sleeping cats and swinging monkeys on the branches, and even hanging strands of fake vines—seemed a little much. Servers rushed back and forth, wearing dark green t-shirts and bright orange caps and aprons with the restaurant’s logo on them.

“It’s under Emi Hidenaga,” his mother said to the man at the front podium. “Do you like pizza?” she asked Kiiko as they were taken to a table and handed menus.

“I don’t know,” Kiiko answered.

“Never had it? I guess that’s not so unusual. How long has it been since we had pizza for dinner, Kensei-kun?”

He shrugged. “A pretty long time, I guess.” Kensei turned to Kiiko next. “Say, when do I get to come and hang out with _your_ family?” Kensei gently prodded her.

            “They’re away,” Kiiko said immediately.

Right then Emi reached across the table and squeezed Kensei’s hand, distracting him from his mild annoyance at Kiiko inviting herself to meet his family. “Have you heard about the brand new Kamen Riders?” Emi asked, beaming. “They’re amazing, aren’t they? I guess the ones that were around before retired, or something.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty cool, huh?” Kensei said right away, a little loudly to talk over Kiiko before she had a chance to reveal anything about him and their part in the new Riders’ battles. With how she’d been acting, Kiiko would probably blurt it right out. But it should be Kensei’s decision on who he told about his double life, right?

“Utsura’s the best one, right?” Kiiko grinned at Emi.

But she knitted her brow. “Which one?”

“The samurai!” Kiiko said, her expression changing to one of confusion like she couldn’t even consider someone not knowing which Kamen Rider was which.

Emi was silent for a second. “Oh…I guess he’s all right. The cowboy’s so much more dashing, though.”

Kiiko’s jaw hit the floor. “HIM?? He’s the grossest one! Even counting the old Riders!”

“Hey Kiiko, look! They’ve got video games!” Kensei interrupted, pointing to a corner of the restaurant where the bright screens of arcade cabinets played. “Why don’t we go check those out while we wait for dinner?”

“Ah, training! Good idea!” Kiiko replied with an eager smile.

He gave her a quiet look. “Not exactly.”

 

XXX

 

            Kiiko glared over her shoulder at the sight of Kensei’s mom, but Kensei himself was dragging her away. After they were on the other side of the noisy pizza place Kiiko let out a sigh. “Thanks, I don’t think I could’ve put up with her liking _Sling_ better than you!”

            He shook his head. “I don’t care if she thinks Sling’s cool. I can’t control what people like,” he said, sounding irritated.

She tilted her head at him questioningly, making her hair sway. “Then what is it?”

Kensei started digging out his wallet, but Kiiko gently took his hand and guided it back to his pocket. “Kensei, what’s wrong? Please answer me,” she whispered.

“Look, Kiiko, if you’re going to invite yourself along when I’m with my family, that’s kind of one thing. But could you not be so _loud_ about the stuff we do about you know, monsters and video game heroes and stuff?” Kensei asked her, walking past the selection of games and looking at each one.

            “Why would you not want them to find out?” Kiiko asked. “I already know your mom would be so proud of you if she found out!...She’s so proud of your brother, right?”

            “Yeah, but don’t you think _I_ should be the one who tells them?” Kensei asked in return. She nodded slowly at the question. “I mean, I’m not going to be doing this for that long, right? When Ex-Aid and Laser and Paradox and all those guys get back, they can take over again, you know? I kind of want to be able to go back to my normal life without a whole lot of stress when that happens.”

            Kiiko stared at him, shocked speechless by his statement. “You mean you want to quit??”

            “I mean I have to think about what I’ll do after the monsters are gone. What are they gonna need me for when anyway when the old Kamen Riders are back?” he sighed, then before Kiiko had the chance to go off on him again, said, “Look, how about some training? Look at all the games they have. Maybe some Aqua Beat? We still need to get good at that.”

            “No, you’re going to play _this_ game,” Kiiko explained, pointing to a claw game. “This one has a doll I want.”

            “Uh, which one?” Kensei asked, and Kiiko pointed to a chibi doll of a girl with bright pink hair with a tiny green hat perched impossibly on the side of her head. She had on a yellow dress with a pink skirt of different shades, with the edges little staircases of pixel formations. One stocking was pink, and the other one was green, both disappearing into yellow platform shoes.

            Realization hit him. “Oh! It’s what’s her name…Poppy! From that music game, Do Re Mi Fa Beat, right? You know, I think that’s the one game you haven’t made me spend all free time practicing.”

            Kiiko grimaced at the insinuation. “Aqua Beat’s better,” she said simply.

            “Anyway, I really suck at these toy catcher games,” Kensei lightly protested.

            But Kiiko was unmoved. “Hold out your hand, kouhai,” she ordered.

            “How old _are_ you, anyway?”  
            “ _Hold out your hand, Kensei_.”

            “Okay, okay!” Kiiko dropped a mound of shiny jangling coins into his pam. Then she pointed at the Poppy doll without saying a word. He slid a coin into the slot and gripped the controls.

            He didn’t even come close.

            She just pointed at the pile of coins sitting in front of Kensei, and he obligingly took another one and put it in the machine.

            He didn’t even get as close as he had the time before.

            “What?! You got _worse_ at this already!” Kiiko gave him a playful shove.

            “I can’t do it when somebody’s watching,” he protested, but realized he was smiling.

            She looked at him in disbelief, but her expression cracked into a smile. “You think a Bugster won’t be watching when you’re trying to fight for your life! You’re not even close to being done with fighting, Kensei!”

            “What are you guys talking about?” asked a little boy distracted from his and his friend’s game of Aqua Beat by the conversation between the two.

            “Your friend’s getting ahead of you, kid,” Kensei replied. The kid looked back and screamed as he realized he had indeed just missed three signals and the hula dancers on the islands on his side of the screen were starting to frown. The other kid chuckled as he pulled ahead on points. Kensei smiled a little and Kiiko giggled.

            Suddenly they felt a huge, dark presence looming over their shoulders.

            “What got into you two? We haven’t even ordered yet and you already wandered away to kill time while we waited for the food!” Emi Hidenage said, playfully exasperated.

            “Kiiko saw this doll she really wanted me to win her, kaa-san,” Kensei explained, pointing to the Poppy doll in the back of the machine.

            “…from all the way across the restaurant.”

            “Yes,” Kiiko replied immediately then turned and faced the game again, pressing another coin into Kensei’s hand. His mother watched as he dropped it into the slot and tried to maneuver the claw over to the corner where the Poppy doll was waiting to be liberated. As he did Emi’s eyes went wide, then the biggest smirk she’d ever had in her life formed on her face.

            They looked back at her, not noticing the Poppy doll slipping out of the claw. “Kaa-san? What’s so funny?”

            She just smirked even wider. “Oh, nothing!” She tried to hold her silence and let them stew for a second, but failed. “So, have you two kissed yet?”

            “Kensei says it’s too soon in our relationship for that kind of thing yet,” Kiiko answered casually as if what she said had no implications at all.

            He gaped in shock at what she’d just said. “I did _NOT_ mean it that way!!!”

            His mother didn’t even seem to hear his denial. “No wonder your little friend came along!” she laughed.

But as she did Kiiko’s eyes suddenly rolled up into her head and she slumped against Kensei. Kiiko caught herself with one hand against the crane game but spilled the pile of coins she’d left there all over the floor. People from all the close tables and the other players in the arcade looked over to see what was wrong.

            Kensei’s mom let out a little triumphant laugh at what she thought she was seeing. As she did Kiiko whispered in his ear, “Kensei, there’s something powerful near us.”

            “What is it? A new Gashat already?” he whispered back.

            “…no! It’s an enemy!”

            He quickly scanned the room, over the heads of the surprised diners and then over to the other kids in the arcade. Then he stopped at one in the far corner, of a kid in a tanktop and shorts about his own age, playing a game called Jet Combat. There were bright purple flecks dripping off his fingernails and onto the machine that were already starting to grow even as Kensei watched.

            Then suddenly he leaned over and locked eyes with Kensei immediately. His eyes were flickering with light, and he smiled as he said one word: “CORRUPT!”

            Then all hell broke loose.

 

XXX

 

            The kid held his arms out at his sides and his body was engulfed in a cloud of giant crackling pixels. It cleared a second later and he was replaced by the figure of a giant humanoid bug, standing on his hind legs and with shiny black hands on the ends of his forelegs. He had two pairs of long transparent wings but a human face covered in the same shiny black material as the rest of his body, with giant cartoony eyes. And for a nose he had a two-foot-long stinger for a nose.

            But it wasn’t just a new Bugster appearing. The flecks of purple that had seeped off his body were crawling together and starting to cover the wall behind the games with a blackness that seemed to go on forever. Strings of random transparent numbers crawled by, moving up and down. Strange blocky shapes of all different colors jabbed up from it then split apart and joined with others into even crazier shapes. The graphical chaos started to spread across the ceiling of the arcade, and with a groan the wall collapsed backwards, showing the street through the enormous new hole.

            The bug monster fluttered his buzzing wings and took to the air. He flew low over the restaurant, plates of his arm flicking up on his sides and swarms of tiny black insects flying out and covering the diners and servers. A giant collective scream went up as the insects started stinging any skin they could reach, crawling inside people’s clothes to get at it if they didn’t land on any.

            Mrs. Hidenaga screamed as a swarm of them bit into her neck and wrists. She lunged and tried to grab Kensei’s wrist. As she did he stepped closer to her but slipped suddenly on the coins on the floor and fell on his face.

            Kiiko started to bend down to help him up, but Kensei turned his face up and winked quickly at her. She smiled lightly and winked back just as quickly. She took Mrs. Hidenaga by the arm and started running for one of the doors along with everyone else. Behind them Kensei got up and started running after them but after only a second he disappeared in the mass of fleeing people.

            But his sharpened eyes saw Kiiko and his mother run out through one of the fire exits. As the last couple people got to the doors, shaking stinging bugs off themselves, the giant bug turned around started flying back, and already Kensei had hit the trigger on En En Chambara.

            “Henshin…”

 

XXX

 

            His helmet locked itself into place on his head, completing the change into Kamen Rider Utsura again. The giant bug dove at him, clenching a mouthful of very human teeth. What stupid game had this goofy Bugster come from?

            As he went into a dive, Utsura reached down and tweaked the trigger on his Gashat again, switching his powers to range mode. The plastic-looking longbow appeared in the air in front of him and Utsura snatched it and fired an arrow at the Bugster.

He tilted in midair and the arrow went past without hitting him, giving a snide grin as he was now only a few feet away and Utsura had wasted his only shot before the Bugster was close enough to hit him back.

But just before the stinger on his face stabbed into him, Utsura  jumped and slammed his knee into the Bugster’s soft middle. He jerked harshly and his stinger just skidded off the Rider’s shoulder armor. Then before they landed Utsura drew his katana and slashed so fast its blade became a bright green blur that raked into the Bugster, sending pixels spraying off and the monster crashing into a row of tables and flying through the window into the kitchen.

            A piercing shriek came from the kitchen that cracked the nearest windows and knocked all the cooking equipment over. The Bugster stood up and faced Utsura through the serving window, covered in orange grease and chopped mushrooms. “You think I’m no threat because I have a silly face…isn’t that right, Rider?”

            Utsura didn’t answer for a minute and kept his sword held between them. He glanced over both shoulders to make sure no other enemies were sneaking up on him. “I think anything can be a threat,” Utsura replied.

            “So you think even a monster like King Gnatinga could end your life?” the Bugster sneered.

            “That’s what I just said,” Utsura replied suspiciously.

            The weird pixelated corruption of the restaurant was covering the floor now, turning it a drab yellow-brown like an old game with a limited color selection. Utsura didn’t pay too much attention for the moment, not daring to take his eyes off his enemy, but he hoped he’d still be able to stand on it when it got to him.

            Suddenly King Gnatinga flew out through the serving window. Plates of shiny armor came spinning through the air out of the pixel blackness that covered the walls now. They attached themselves all over the hovering Bugster’s body. His wings themselves were made of something like transparent crystal. His legs were engulfed into a triangular-shaped abdomen like a wasp’s with the nosecone of a missile sticking out in place of the stinger.

            “I’ve seen bigger monster than you get beaten,” Utsura said with his sword held high, ready to fight.

            “Bet you’ve never seen a gun with a kick like this, sugar!” said another voice, and Utsura looked to his side to see a cowgirl with giant lips just like the ones on the barrel of her rifle, standing there where he was sure no-one had been a minute ago.

            “I’m not scared of two monsters at once,” Utsura said.

            Crimson Candy laughed and leveled the mouth of her gun at him. “You shouldn’t be scared of _me_ , sweetie! Cuz mah gun’s scary enough for all three of us!”

            Then she squeezed the trigger.

            The next thing Utsura knew he was flying.

 

XXX

 

            The blur of colors and roaring noise finally died down, and Utsura realized he was lying on his back, and the middle of his chest seemed to be on fire. He still couldn’t see straight but Utsura batted at the painful spot frantically for a second before it died down enough for him to stop.

            The Rider realized he was in a restaurant, but not the jungle pizza parlor he’d been in a second ago. There was a huge hole in the wall and he was lying on top of a crushed table with sushi and sauce all over his armor and a very surprised couple looking down at the battered superhero lying where they’d been eating dinner a second ago.

            Another collective scream went up and Utsura groaned and put his hands over his ears but only pushed the sides of his helmet a little closer to his head. Instead he felt around for his sword and looked p to realize it was gone. Maybe it had been destroyed by the cowgirl’s shot. That was all he needed, to be down one  of his strongest weapons with two Bugsters out to get him.

            But that made him remember. He’d been shot. And he’d clearly been shot so hard he’d been blown out of the building and clean into another one. He looked down at his health bar and gasped to see only two marks left, the rest totally black. The shot that hit him was _that_ powerful?

            Utsura staggered to his feet and called up his double wakizashi to get ready as he heard a buzzing noise getting close and guessed the Bugster enemies were coming to finish him off.

Sure enough a second later the shiny body of King Gnatinga buzzed by. He crashed into the sushi place and hovered menacingly with his giant missile launcher aimed at Utsura. But he just stayed there, glaring at the Kamen Rider without attacking.

Crimson Candy herself came in, casually leaning her weapon on her shoulder, and smiling cruelly at Utsura. At least, he thought so. With a mouth that size it was hard to tell.

“You aren’t bad for a couple of Bugsters, but it’s not over yet,” Utsura said.

At that, Candy laughed hard at him. “Bugsters??”

“Then what are you?” Utsura demanded, pointing one sword at her and trying his best to sound confident even with most of his health bar destroyed.

“Oh, we _were_ Bugsters, _once_ ,” Gnatinga answered for them both, and Candy just leaned against the wall and let him. “We’ve done what any good virus does, though…we evolved. Look at all that mess that took over that little restaurant. And it’s coming here, _now._ ”

Candy stood up and levelled her rifle at Utsura again. “Honey, you can just call us the Corrupture.”

 

**See you next game**


	7. Pen is the Strongest Weapon?

Corrupture.

            Utsura’s grip on his swords shook for a second.

            He’d thought they were just fighting another outbreak of Bugsters, the monsters the other Kamen Riders had already beaten. They were powerful, but he had known what to expect with them.

            Now they were calling themselves the Corrupture, though? They’d evolved, and had new powers? And when he was just barely starting to feel like he was getting a good grip on what was going on thanks to Kiiko’s intense game “training”.

            “Enough already,” said Gnatinga, the metal-plated killer bug buzzed. He raised his abdomen and the missile sticking out of the tip as a missile roared out aimed straight at Utsura’s chest. He clutched his swords tight to his chest and got ready to throw himself out of the way at the last second before the missile could hit him.

The warhead exploded and blew out half the wall behind him. Gnatinga’s launcher started to grind as it loaded another shot. Utsura got his feet underneath him and ran at Gnatinga. The Rider was in bad shape, but if he gave Gnatinga the chance to get off another shot he probably wouldn’t be in any shape at all. Utsura slashed with both of his short blades over and over, pummeling the giant bug and making tiny dents into his armor that a normal person without reformatted eyesight wouldn’t even see.

            King Gnatinga hissed in anger and tried to stab Utsura with the gleaming stinger on his face, who ducked out of the way just in time. He hit the floor and rolled to the wall, tapping the trigger on his Gashat to switch to ranged combat mode and making his swords disappear in favor of his bow. Utsura instantly fired an arrow at the tip of the new missile sticking out of Gnatinga’s launcher, not setting it off but tilting it down.

            The giant bug gasped in surprise then buzzed angrily. Utsura fired another arrow aimed at Gnatinga’s wings but the shot shattered as it hit the crystal-like material. But in that second where he was distracted by the shot Utsura ran for the hole in the wall the missile had just torn open.

“You think you can get away from us that easy?” Crimson Candy called after him. “We’re everywhere, y’all can’t even count how many there are! Gnatgina-honey, send out yer li’l ol’ friends…”

            Gnatinga gave a sound of agreement that was halfway between a buzz and a grunt. He flew out the hole in the wall and into the sky above the rooftops. There was no sign of Utsura, probably hiding in the shadows somewhere until he recovered his strength. Well, he wouldn’t get the chance.

Panels flicked open on Gnatinga’s sides and tiny insects with gleaming metal skin flew out and started to fill the sky. Sparks jumped off the tips of their wings and stingers as they flew out in search of the missing Kamen Rider.

 

XXX

 

As the cloud of metal bugs flew by and split as they got to an intersection, a pair of giant eyes peeked out from the third level of a parking garage. Utsura stood up and ran down the stairs back to the street.

He tried to tell himself he wasn’t afraid of these new monsters, but part of him warned him about that if Crimson Candy’s shot had been just a little more on-target it would’ve finished him off. If he was fast and smart, and found some way to bounce back before he ran into her again, maybe he could beat her.

But not her and Gnatinga at the same time. The bug Bugster…no, Corrupture, had been practically impervious to his attacks. If Utsura was going to beat him, there was no way he could do it alone. The whole point of his arrangement with Genm Corp. had been that neither of the other Kamen Riders trusted anyone but themselves, though. Even if he could find Rune or Sling—

But then he noticed a dark shape coming down the street, the unmistakable shape of his hat and the flapping poncho around his shoulders immediately giving away who it was. “Well, looks like the tables have turned, Hidenaga,” he said. As he walked over to Utsura he holstered his gun, however. “Got in a little trouble, looks like.”

“Saw all that, huh? You want to make some kind of deal, I bet,” Utsura said.

            “Let’s get one thing clear,” Sling said, his hand on his gun, but he looked almost casual that way. “You’re an idiot just like your brother, but it turns out these monsters are something new and they’re already getting stronger. And since you’re a nice little team player, that means you’re probably the one who’s open to a truce.”

            “Thanks…”

            “That wasn’t a compliment,” Sling went on. “This doesn’t change anything, I’m not your friend. But for now, it looks like we could both use some back-up.”

            “Why—”

            But Sling just cut him off, “Get it through your head, Hidenaga: you’re not the big hero of this story. You probably think you are, carrying on your precious big brother’s legacy or something.”

            Utsura growled in his throat, starting to get tired of hearing Sling insult his brother without even saying why. Instead, he said, “I’d love to hear that story sometime of this grudge you have against my brother, but maybe the heroes are the ones who actually save everyone from the trouble they’re in.”

            “So let’s go find those Corrupture before they come after us,” Sling replied. “Anyone knows they’d have the upper hand then.”

            After a second Utsura followed him down the alley, even more unsure of what was happening to him.

 

XXX

 

            The phone seemed to burn inside Utsura’s pocket. He felt like calling Kiiko, and then even his mother, to make sure they were all right. The only thing stopping him was what he’d say when they answered. Kiiko would ask if he’d lost his mind for agreeing to team up with Sling, and his mother would ask why he’d never said anything about being a superhero. Then he probably wouldn’t be able to get off the phone with her for the rest of the night to go fight Candy and Gnatinga.

            “Be ready,” Sling whispered suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. “I think they’re just up ahead.” Then there was a sound like something big—probably a car—exploding, and Sling was off and running, his hand clenched around the handle of his gun its holster.

            Before he followed Utsura tried to open his inventory again, but the icon for the Gashacon Tana was blacked out. It looked like he was going to have to manage without his primary weapon until he had a chance to recover from this fight after all. Then he was running down the alley behind Sling too.

            The street was a scene of chaos, and not just because of the missile that Gnatinga had just blown in the front of a building with. The panels on his sides were open and spreading clouds of sparking insects into the air, some flying higher to look for the Kamen Riders while others flew down close to the ground and started chewing through cars, buildings and stinging anyone who still hadn’t managed to run away.

            Another missile loaded itself in Gnatinga’s abdomen and he looked around, probably for another good target. But then his back stiffened and he twisted and leaned back as a glowing arrow and bullet went streaking by his armor-plated head and exploded somewhere behind him. He spotted where the assault came from: Sling and Utsura standing on the sidewalk below with gun and bow still aimed at him. He whipped around and fired his new missile at them, but the Riders were already running out of the way and it only blew some blackened debris onto them as they aimed their weapons again.

            Gnatinga growled in annoyance at how slow he could feel it taking a new missile to assemble and load itself inside him. He let one of Utsura’s arrows explode against him and only leave a minor dent before he let the panels on his sides flick open, and start to send out another cloud of bugs down at the Kamen Riders.

            Utsura desperately shot off another arrow at the opened panels and Gnatinga snickered as he beat his wings faster and lifted out of the way. He directed the bugs and they landed all over Utsura, stabbing their needle-sharp stingers right through his armor. Utsura yelled in pain and ran down the street, trying to knock the bugs off him with his hands.

            Gnatinga knew he didn’t need to worry about the other Rider.

 

XXX

 

            Just then Sling was staring down a familiar face, whose giant lips were curled into a cruel if still silly-looking smile. “Yer back for more, huh, sugar?” Crimson Candy asked, gently bouncing her rifle on her shoulder.

            Sling made no move, but his hand was still on the butt of his gun. “You think you scared me with those stupid dragons from before, maybe?” he said coldly. “Maybe you’re strong, but you’re still an enemy from a video game, and they’re made to be beaten.”

            “Wah, I didn’t know ya’ll were such a philosophizer, Sling honey!” Candy laughed.

            He ignored the crack. “I challenge you to a standoff. We face each other then turn and fire without warning. It’ll be a real contest of skill and nerves.”

            Candy laughed at his dare. “And wah should I agree to sumthin’ l—” she stared to say before suddenly there was a loud bang and something erupted against her chest, blowing her off her feet to land a good ten feet away. Sling stood there with his gun smoking, he’d drawn and fired it so fast she hadn’t even seen it.

            “We can do this the hard way too,” he said with quiet rage in his voice. “I wanted to give you the chance to settle this as equals, so that when I beat you and send you back to wherever it is you came from, you can tell them it was a fair contest.”

            She smirked. “Sug, you don’t get it, do ya? We ain’t lookin’ to get into fights with Kamen Riders,” Candy informed him. “We’re looking to make a place we can survive, and spread…take a look-see!” she said with a wave of her hand.

            He did, still keeping one eye on her, and saw a building in the distance starting to turn a washed-out, 8-bit color of yellow. The colors seemed to climb up the side and into the windows. Weird lobster-faced aliens and long-necked dragons made of garish pixels stuck their heads out of the windows that had already been covered. Smaller buildings near it had already been covered, one bright pink and another bright red. The roof on the shorter red one split open and a pixelated rocketship flew into the air.

            “The little bit he started at that li’l ol’ restaurant’s already spread this far!” Candy said with a triumphant smirk on her huge mouth.

            Then Sling realized something had landed in front of his foot. It was a bright blue stick of dynamite with a sparking fuse. He jumped back with all the distance his powers could give him and it blew a hole as deep as Graphite had been tall. Sling hadn’t even gotten the chance to stand up before another two sticks came tumbling through the air. He aimed and fired in quick succession blowing them both up in midair.

            By then Crimson Candy had her rifle pointed at him and the lips on the end seemed to purse in a kiss before it fired a giant shell with a grinning, fanged face painted on the tip.

 

XXX

 

            Another one of Utsura’s arrows shot out at Gnatinga but the bug monster leaned to the side and his beating wings chopped the arrow to bits. He gave a buzzing laugh at the clumsy shot Utsura had tried to make while the bugs chewed into his armor, marks on his health bar disappearing as they wouldn’t let up their biting and stinging.

            Gnatinga had a new missile loaded by then and turned and buzz-laughed as he fired it at the weakened Rider. Without warning Utsura shot another arrow at the missile before he tossed himself to the ground. They both exploded in a giant burst of flames and smoke.

            Then a disaster happened.

            A woman staggered down an intersection into the street, looking up and down for something. Utsura froze as he recognized her: it was his mother. She looked into his giant googly eyes and then yelled, “KENSEI!”

            “…what?” he gasped, his throat suddenly dry as the Sahara Desert.

            That made Gnatinga look back at Utsura, then his face broke into a wicked grin. He dove at Emi and slashed her across the arm with the stinger on his nose leaving a crackling green wound.

“No…!” Utsura yelled then dropped his bow and called up his twin swords instead. These new monsters were more than he was used to, but he could make up for it if he did what he was built for. Slow arrows weren’t going to get through to King Gnatinga, he needed a fast, brutal offense.

More of Gnatinga’s tiny robot bugs filled the air, coming straight for Utsura again. But this time Utsura yelled at the top of his lungs and charged right through them and jumped straight at the monster. Utsura ignored the biting bugs on his arms and slashed fast and hard as he could, slicing through the swarm of tiny bugs but the strongest of his attacks hitting Gnatinga himself.

Sparks flew and tiny dents formed in the bug’s armor, but he was pushed back farther and farther through the air. With the last of his momentum Utsura threw a spinning kick that caught King Gnatinga right where the abdomen joined with his torso and a burst of yellow and red pixels spewed up around Utsura’s leg. Gnatinga buzzed loud in surprise and went spinning away from the awesome force of Utsura’s kick.

With his enemy taken care of for a little bit Utsura ran over to where his mother was leaned against a wall, covering the cut on her arm with her hand. Kiiko had caught up to her and was kneeling down by her, but looked up at Utsura for answers as he ran over. “I think he poisoned her,” Kiiko whispered to him.

“I’m fine, Kensei,” Emi said, but her voice was shaking. “Go take care of the monsters, it’s what you’re supposed to do, right?”

“Let me see that cut,” he replied.

“Kensei—”

“ _Now_ , mom,” he interrupted sharply. She nodded weakly and moved her hand, and Utsura almost jumped back when he saw the cut giving off tiny green pixels. Around the edges was a blotch that seemed to be spreading slowly. “Oh my god…”

At the same time Sling ran down the street from Candy as she lobbed another stick of dynamite his way, then as he passed a streetlight that he reached out and grabbed to spin around and kick the dynamite back at her. The cowgirl gasped in fear and somersaulted out of the way before her own bomb blew a giant hole in the ground.

While she was distracted Sling quickly tapped in a code on the buttons on top of his gun and aimed at King Gnatinga who was in the air again and about to divebomb Utsura and the girls behind him. The panels on his sides were already flicking up to release more tiny bugs.

Sling squeezed the trigger and a pellet shot out. It hit King Gnatinga dead-on and exploded into a cloud of red dust. The panels on Gnatinga’s body creaked and stopped opening. He buzzed angrily and whipped his face aground to face Sling, teeth clenched. “What did you do to me??” he demanded.

“Oxidizing pellet,” Sling replied, then explained in a smirking voice. “Rust bomb. Looks like you’ll need to figure the rest of this out without your little friends.” Right then Utsura grabbed King Gnatinga hard enough to dent his armor, then threw the giant bug at Crimson Candy. “Not bad,” Sling admitted.

Utsura gave him a sidelong glare, but didn’t have long to think about it. His phone rang in his pocket, and a hunch told him to check it. There was a big UNKNOWN where the caller’s name would be, but he recognized the number by then. “Kazumono, now’s really not the best time—” Utsura said as he answered it.

“I think it is, Hidenaga-san,” the Genm Corp. technician corrected him. “We’ve seen that huge fight you’re having. You look like you’re struggling and we thought it’d be a good time to tell you that Mighty Sketch is ready for its first field test.”

“What?? It’s ready?” Utsura exclaimed.

Sling grabbed the phone from him. “What’s ready?? What about the others?!” But there was no answer. Kazumono had hung up.

“He’s got a power-up ready,” Utsura whispered, fear for his mother’s condition making him talk more easily than he would’ve around Sling. “But I can’t go to the Genm building, I’ve got a wounded lady here.”

“So bring her,” Sling retorted, then cut him off before he argue by saying, “Can you think of someplace safer for her to be than around a couple of _superheroes_ , Hidenaga?”

            Utsura clenched his fists for a second, then dropped them to his sides and admitted, “No.”

            Sling waved his arm then and his Stagebike formed itself out of a wireframe in front of him. A second later Utsura was in the saddle of his ghostly suit of horse armor. He reached down to help his mother into the saddle with him, but she leaned away from his hand with a sheepish grin.

            “Um, I think I’ll ride with the cowboy, if that’s okay?” she asked.

            “If that gets us on the road _now_ , fine,” Sling said and hoisted Emi up into the seat behind him. He didn’t wait for Utsura before revving the engine and making his bike give a whistle of steam and then streaking away down the street. Kiiko watched them go, then shrugged her shoulders and held out her hand for Utsura, who took it and lifted her up behind him.

As he galloped off after Sling the scream of one of King Gnatinga’s missiles filled the air. The explosion as it hit the street missed them by inches. In another second, both Riders were out of sight.

“Damn, missed!” Gnatinga scowled. “I’ll get you now, Riders!” he buzzed, firing another missile down the street after them.

            Suddenly Crimson Candy held her rifle out in front of him, stopping him cold. “Take it easy, sug,” she stopped him. “We’re here to take the place over, not wreck anything we see.”

            The giant bug clenched his teeth and stabbed the air in her direction a few times with his pointy nose. “And just _why_ are we supposed to listen to you, anyway?” he demanded.

            The blast of Crimson Candy’s rifle was her reply, and King Gnatinga just had a second to see the grinning bullet in the air before it hit the nosecone of his missile and set it off.

            There was a fireball and a shrill explosion and the robot bug was blasted impossibly high into the sky until, just for a second, he was higher than the pixelated rocketship that was still climbing. Then, he fell. He came down screaming and crashed into the asphalt with a clang.

            “Because _ah’m_ in charge here, sugar!” Candy laughed, stomping on top of Gnatinga’s head and dragging the spikes on her spurs across the back. “The boys on top don’t want a body count…besides, what if it made him so mad he gave you the ass-beatin’ of yer _life_?”

            “Point taken,” groaned Gnatinga as she finally pulled his face out of the ground.

            “Now let’s get goin’, genius. Before he gets there first and gets to that new game uh his.”

 

XXX

 

            For a few minutes Sling was riding side by side as they went toward the Genm building as fast as they could. After a while they came to a wide intersection, and suddenly Sling leaned to his left and zoomed away from Utsura, even running the light.

            “You owe me, Hidenaga!” Sling yelled as he turned another corner and disappeared down another street.

            For a second Utsura’s blood boiled, but then he looked over his shoulder and saw King Gnatinga come buzzing furiously down the street, clenching his teeth in anger and showing a new sparking warhead in his missile launcher.

If Gnatinga was focused on him, and his mother was speeding away on the bike of another Kamen Rider, then she was going to be safer than with a killer robo-bug blowing up everything in sight. All Utsura needed to worry about was making sure he was still in one piece when he got his new Gashat.

            He faced ahead again and his ghost horse picked up the pace, but that wasn’t by much, it had already been going almost all-out. He heard a loud pop and a sinister sizzling noise behind them and leaned hard as a turn came up, holding on tight not to get thrown off as they went around it without losing any speed.

            Kiiko yelped in pain as Gnatinga’s missile exploded, a wall of force seeming to hit them from behind and slamming her face into the thickest part of Utsura’s armor. Chips cracked off from the horse armor they were riding but it straightened up and it dashed down another street. To Utsura’s relief he could see the giant pink sign on the side of the Genm Corp. building overhead.

            In another second they’d made it to the parking lot. That was when he heard the sizzling sound of the last missile King Gnatinga had shot at them. There was a deafening blast and then Utsura couldn’t hear anything as he was ripped out of the saddle.

            He hit the ground and rolled a few times across the asphalt. As he stopped the hoof of his obliterated mount came spinning through the air and smashed into his forehead. Utsura was almost in a panic before he saw Kiiko coming down from a jump…she’d seen the missile coming and jumped off just in time.

            Gnatinga stopped a little way away and started to twist and make a horrible metal grinding noise. “You made me mad, kid! This is what you get!” he yelled over the awful sound. The giant abdomen with its rocket launcher split off from the rest of, a strangely skinny King Gnatinga pulling himself out and hovering in the air.  As he did his beating wings started to spin like a helicopter blade.

            Then Gnatinga went diving at Utsura, the blade on his shoulders slicing at the Riders head, and another missile with a fiery tip loaded itself in the hovering abdomen behind him. Utsura grabbed his enemy by the leg but Gnatinga only grinned and flew high up toward the top of the building.

            A second later the front doors of the building flew open, and Kazumono the tech came running out, waving an orange Rider Gashat over his head. “Hidenaga-san! I’ve got it! I’ve got your…what happened?”

            Kiiko pointed straight up, and Kazumono followed her finger to where the two pieces of King Gnatinga were carrying Utsura into the sky.

            The tech gasped and ran back inside to the main elevator, then groaned at the “Out of Order” sign taped to the doors.

           

XXX

 

            The sounds of explosions faded into the distance and Sling slowed down his motorcycle until he came to a total stop. “We’ll probably be safe here,” he said, more to himself than to his passenger.

            But speaking of, she slumped against his back and slurred, “You’re so kind, cowboy-saaaaaan…”

            “Not a cowboy, a _gunslinger_ ,” he corrected her, but gently. He held her up with one hand as he turned around and got down from his Cruiser. But when he turned around to look Emi Hidenaga in the face, he stopped suddenly.

            Her face was covered by a haze of pixels popping up off her skin. The cut on her arm was actively sizzling, and the contour of her arm was starting to show sharp blocky edges. “What’s wrong?” she asked with a slight buzz of static to her voice, as if she could see how wide Sling’s eyes had gone behind his mask.

            “I don’t know,” he whispered.

            “I’ll tell ya what’s wrong!” an annoying but familiar female voice said with a snide laugh. “She ain’t gonna be a plain ol’ human fer much longer!”

            Sling whipped around and drew his gun so quickly it was like he’d never put it away. He squeezed the trigger and sent a bullet screaming down the street that shaved off a lock of Crimson Candy’s neon purple hair. “That was only a warning shot.”

            “You shoulda made it count, sugar! The only thing you’ll get out of me is a kiss from ol’ Bess!” she sneered and aimed the lips of her rifle at his head.

            There was only one sound of a gun going off as both of them fired at the same time. Sling’s glowing energy bullet slammed into the smiling fanged bullet out of Candy’s rifle, both falling out of the air.

            But already Sling had taken off running, leaning hard into the wind so it slowed him down as little as possible. In a split second he fired again, the bullet skimming the lips on Candy’s rifle as she leaned back not to get hit herself. Sling hit the A button on his gun and the small barrels around his main one fired a fast barrage. A few shots went flying past her but about half hit her in the chest, and one lucky shot hit the fuse of one of the sticks of dynamite she had on her vest.

            Emi covered her ears as the explosive went off and blasted Candy into the air. Before she even hit the ground Sling was running after her, drawing a bead on her with his gun. He fired but she detached a stick of dynamite and threw it, the bullet hitting it and blowing both up in midair.

            “You shootin’ a poor li’l girl like me in the back? You ain’t much of a hero!” Candy sneered.

            “I gave you the chance for a fair fight. This is what you asked for instead,” Sling retorted.

            Then he fired.

 

XXX

 

            As the ground got farther and farther away Utsura thought about what a stupid, horrible idea it had been to try to grab a flying monster. Gnatinga sneered at him and tried to stab the Rider in the chest with the stinger on his nose. Utsura let go with one hand and Gnatinga by the nose, giving a defiant grunt as he twisted it hard to the side. The Rider quickly planted his feet on Gnatinga’s chest and pushed off, aiming himself at the top of the Genm building.

            He landed on his back and immediately called his twin swords. Gnatinga turned as he flew in so the rotor on his back tore across the roof like a buzz saw. Utsura swung his swords at the whirling blade and it stopped spinning for a second but the rotor whipped out again and tore the swords out of his hands. The blades shattered and faded into wireframes.

The missile launcher zoomed after Utsura but he laid flat as it fired its next sparking missile at him. The missile went screaming past him and exploded in the sky.

            “Where did Kazumono want me to meet him anyway?” Utsura groaned. He’d managed to knock Gnatinga off-balance before by throwing everything he had at the bug, but it had hardly done any damage. If this fight lasted much longer, Utsura was sure he’d lose.

            The missile launcher looped around and came back at Utsura again, another sparking missile already loaded and aimed straight at him. The Kamen Rider gulped, then did something extremely desperate. He charged up to the missile launcher and pressed the trigger button on his Gashat.

            “ **En En…Critical Strike!** ” it said as he threw a kick at the tip of the missile so hard his boot started to burn with a weird pink and green flame. It hit the tip of the missile and the force of Utsura’s attack set it off. A fireball ripped across the roof of the building. Utsura was sent violently sliding back across the roof, his leg toasted black from the missile going off, until he hit the edge.

            The next thing he knew he was falling.

            The ground that he’d been flying away from so fast just a minute ago came screaming up to meet, him, so he could flatten himself into a pancake when he hit it at a speed he didn’t even want to think about. He reached out as far as he could and his fingers skidded against the side of the building hard enough to send up sparks. Behind his mask Utsura gritted his teeth and jammed his fingers into the edge of the concrete.

            For a second it felt like his arm was about to be pulled off but he did start slowing down. Utsura braced his boots against the side too, but that was when Gnatinga and his flying missile launcher came over the side and flew down after him. When he still had about a fourth of the building’s height to go Utsura let go and fell the rest of the way.

            But what was he going to do with no weapons left at all?

            Right then the roof access door flew open and Kazumono, his shirt drenched with sweat and gasping for breath, ran out onto the roof with the orange Gashat clenched in his hand. “Hidenaga-san, I have your…new…” he started to say, but lanced over at the hole in the fence around the edge Utsura had made when he fell off.

            “You’re kidding me,” he groaned breathlessly before he turned to open the door again.

            The knob didn’t budge.

            “Oy!” Kazumono yelled, and lifted his fist to pound on the door then a second before he hit it he realized he was about to slam the hand holding the valuable Gashat his team had just finished against the hard metal door and stopped suddenly with a panicked yelp. Instead he knocked hard and yelled again to try to get somebody’s attention.

 

XXX

 

            The missile launcher made a horrible loud grinding sound as it reloaded, a huge crack forming along the top. It fired at Utsura but the missile spiraled crazily through the air and missed him entirely, exploding a shiny red convertible in the parking lot instead.

            It looked like Utsura had done more damage than he thought when he kicked it.

            Gnatinga hovered above the Rider with his rotor seeming to spin even faster before he went in for the kill. Utsura slowly started going into a stance so the monster wouldn’t know he was ready when the attack came.

            But the attack wasn’t the killer dive Utsrua had been expecting.

            Panels under Gnatinga’s arms creaked for a second then popped open and spat out a robot bug the size of a baseball, four of them in all. One of them flew at Utsura and slammed into his stomach. He gasped and staggered back a few feet but then two more came at him with black gleaming stingers popping out from the bottom. One jabbed into his arm and the other stabbed in his cheek. The stingers pulsed with electricity and Utsura screamed in agony.

He fell back on the ground and saw the last bug grow a pair of kuwagata-style horns and clamp down on his leg. Gnatinga’s missile launcher hovered above him, about to blow him away from point blank range.

            “There! There he is!” Kiiko’s voice called out from the front door to the building. She was pointing across the parking lot. Kazumono stumbled out and slumped hard against the beam holding up the roof of the entrance.

            And in his hand was an orange Rider Gashat.

            “Guys!” Utsura yelled in relief but it turned into a shriek of pain as the bugs dug into him again. He reached up to the one on his face and yanked it off then started to stagger to the door where they were waiting.

            The missile launcher ground and creaked as it tried to fire at his back, but Utsura suddenly turned around and threw the bug he’d yanked out of his face at it. The bug chirped in surprise as it hit the missile and blew them both up. “What took you so long, Kazumono?” Utsura yelled over his shoulder.

            “First you were down here, and then you were up there, and now you’re down here again…,” the tech panted.

            “You mean you ran all the way up to the roof, and then back down again?” Utsura demanded.

            “No, just up to the roof,” Kazumono said.

            “Somebody said the elevator was broken as a joke,” Kiiko said flatly.

            Kazumono managed to pull himself up and cocked his arm. “Hidenaga, catch!”

            The grinding of King Gnatinga’s missile launcher came from behind. Utsura held up his hand to catch the incoming Gashat and the bugs bit down even hard into his body. Marks melted off his health bar, but he jumped and grabbed the precious power-up.

            “Let’s play,” Utsura said, then hit the trigger button on his new Gashat.

 

XXX

 

            As he tapped in the last button in a code on his gun, Sling pulled the trigger. A tiny snake with shining fangs shot from each of the smaller barrels at Crimson Candy. She was already running to avoid his next attack but two sank their fangs into her arm.

            She gasped but yanked them out and jumped high before Sling could get off another shot at her. Her boots touched the edge of a windowsill and she had lit sticks of dynamite stuck between her fingers. She threw them so hard they embedded themselves in the ground around Sling’s feet.

            But then he did the last thing she was expecting. Sling lowered his gun and fired at the closest stick of dynamite.

            The blast sent a huge fireball into the air but riding up through the middle of it on a crumbling hunk of asphalt was Kamen Rider Sling. He fired a series of quick shots that strafed the wall of the building and shattered the ledge Candy was standing on out from under her.

She fell, her huge lips parting in a gasp of surprise. But as she did she clutched her rifle and aimed at Sling. Candy squeezed the trigger but as the big bullet flew at his head Sling turned at the last second and it skimmed the brim of his hat instead. He levelled his Pamaka and fired a shot of his own that knocked the rifle out of her hands and then the force of explosion he was still riding took him close enough to push the barrel into her stomach.

“ **Bang Bang Critical Finish!** ”

A cannon-like burst exploded out from his gun. Candy screamed in pain but it was drowned out by the blast. She cartwheeled through the air but managed to land on her feet, and she sent up sparks as her spurs dragged along the ground.

She finally stopped and started to stand up. Another gunshot rang out and her hat went flying off. “So you actually survived that,” Sling said, sounding disappointed but slightly impressed too. “But I’m still not impressed. To show you how beneath us you really are, I’ll give you another chance to be civilized about this. To go back to wherever you came from and tell them we’re better than you. They can send as many ‘Corrupture’ as they want, but I’ll destroy them all.”

            Candy smiled, then tossed back her head back and laughed for a second. “Fine, sweetie,” she said with a grotesquely big smile. “But I ain’t gonna go so easy on ya next time!”

            Then she turned into a stream of pixels that floated away into the flickering hole in the sky where all of her kind came from.

            Sling turned back to Emi, only to see her entire outline starting to flicker with static.

 

XXX

 

            The bugs all over Utsura’s body dug themselves in even deeper as the missile screamed across the parking lot. It spiraled left and right but he was sure it would hit close enough to blow him to bits.

            Unless this new add-on Gashat could save him…he had his doubts, with how it showed that Mighty character with the giant goggles and sneakers wielding a paintbrush under the logo MIGHTY SKETCH.

            “ **Mighty SKEEEEEEEEEEEETCH!** ” it announced. “ **Pennellata Level 3**.” Ignoring the bugs biting down on him, Utsura slid it into the second slot on his belt then opened and closed the lever on front.

            “ **UNLEASH YOUR MIND. MAKE THE MASTERPIECE! COVER THE WOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRLLD!** ” Above Utsura a window formed showing Mighty running by with a paintbrush in his hand, leaving a rainbow streak of paint behind him as he did. Out of it flew a stubby orange robot with a slanted head, and a spray can and paintbrush for arms.

It looped through the air and hovered in front of Utsura then swiped with its paintbrush arm. Just like Mighty it left a trail of rainbow-colored paint that somehow didn’t leave a mark on Utsura but covered the robot bugs on him in a streak of color. Arcs of electricity jumped all over their bodies as they quivered and fell off.

Then Utsura’s samurai armor disconnected from his undersuit and the robot split into pieces. Its paintbrush and spray can arms attached to Utsura’s own arms. Its long feet, almost like clown shoes, attached to his hips while its torso spun over his head and attached to the giant mask on his back like a backpack. Finally as his samurai helmet detached the head of the robot came down and attached on his head, forming a new helmet with a slanted top shaped just like a beret. A lens dropped down over his right eye almost like a monocle.

Gnatinga’s latest missile was still looping through the air toward him but Utsura swiped his right hand and the paintbrush attached to his arm left a trail of orange paint in the air as it swatted the missile aside.

            “An art game? Interesting choice,” he called over his shoulder.

            Kazumono shrugged but smiled at the power of his creation in action. “We decided to pick some unusual genres to give the Rider unexpected abilities! They should be very effective if used with some imagination!”

            “A little imagination, huh?” Utsura mumbled, but behind his mask he was smiling a little. For the first time since this fight started, he had a chance.

            Another missile started to load but as it did Utsura’s new backpack split open and a skinny mechanical arm with a square stamp on the end extended out. The stamp pushed against the tip of the missile, pushing it back inside the missile launcher and leaving a picture of two grinning fuzzballs. Ginger and Nutmeg, the two monsters he and Sling had fought before.

            The insides of the missile launcher made a harsh grinding in protest but having its ammo forced back inside had been all it could take. It shook, cracked and then popped in a dull fireball.

            “Looks like you’re on your own, ‘king’!” Utsura yelled at Gnatinga.

            “You think I’m scared of a paintbrush??” King Gnatinga snarled. The rotor on his back spun furiously and he came flying down at Utsura.

            The Rider waved the hand with the paintbrush attachment in a circle and an orange ring hovered in midair. He stepped back and drew another ring in the air. Gnatinga flew through them and as he did they solidified around him, trapping his arms and legs. The bug Corrupture gasped in surprise and tried to fly higher to have a chance to regroup.

            Utsura lifted his left hand with the spray can attachment and shot a stream of paint that covered Gnatinga’s eyes. The bug cried in pain and jerked violently back and forth, exposing the base of his rotor for just a second. Utsura sprayed more paint inside and in seconds it had hardened like glue. Gnatinga screamed in surprise and crashed into the ground.

            The bug Corrupture managed to get to his feet and after a few tries managed to get his rotor to spin again, spitting out hunks of the dried paint from his back. He ran a few steps then flew at Utsura, who ran right back, brandishing his paint weapons.

            Just before they were about to run into each other Utsura’s backpack split open again and a pair of thin metal arms stretched out of it. They dug into the ground and stretched up, lifting Utsura out of the way. The surprised King Gnatinga ran past underneath him.

            Utsura dropped to the ground again and the two arms stretched out to where Gnatinga had stopped and painted a square on the ground around him. One snaked back inside his backpack but then whipped out again, a can of paint on the end. It dumped orange paint into the square that quickly spread to the edges, totally covering the square and Gnatinga inside it. He thrashed back and forth, but he was trapped like on fly paper.

            “Enough of this,” Utsura said.

“ **Sketch Critical Finish!** ” said his Driver. The boxes on his hips opened up and he slid the weapons on his arms into them. The heads of the paint weapons came off and were replaced by new heads that both looked like the pointed tip of a rubber eraser. The arms came out of his backpack and lifted Utsura up again, and he swiped both erasers through Gnatinga’s body making a giant X. The middle part of him just disappeared in the white trail they left behind, and a second later the rest of him faded into pixels that flowed away into the sky.

It was finally over.

 

XXX

 

            A few minutes later Sling rode up on his steampunk motorcycle with Emi clinging to his back. Even from the far edge of the parking lot they could see her body fading in and out behind a cloud of dancing pixels.

“What were you thinking?” Utsura demanded. Sling looked him up and down, taking in the new additions to his armor, and probably thought better of blowing him off.

“I was trying to keep her safe while you were dealing with the bug,” Sling replied.

“Oh yeah??”

“Kensei-kuuuun, it’s truuuuuuuuuuue,” his mother said, but sounded almost like she was losing consciousness and slumped against Sling’s back. “He saved me from an evil cowgirl…”

Utsura looked at her and reached out a hand but stopped an inch away from touching, a little afraid that doing that might make her disappear. “We need to get her to a hospital or something.”

But Sling shook his head and splayed his fingers on his forehead as if he couldn’t believe such a ridiculous statement. “The old Kamen Riders were the ones who treated the victims of this kind of thing, remember? The ones who are _missing_?”

“And you sure weren’t helping with _that_ yesterday, were you??” Utsura snapped. “Wanting that Gashat just so you could use it…” He was about to grab Sling when Kiiko jumped in front of him.

“Kensei-kun, stop!” she cried out. “You’re worried about your mother, but think about that. At least your mother’s here for you to be worried about.”

That made Utsura step back. “You’re…a…you’re an…,” he stammered out, then stopped and took a breath. “I’m sorry, Kiiko. But all this power I’ve got…and what can I do for my mom now?”

“She’s not the only thing we should be worrying about, Hidenaga,” Sling said, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb, at the skyline where a tall building was almost totally pixelated and strings of flickering numbers were starting to float out of the windows. “What about all that? It looks like beating the monster isn’t fixing…whatever started happening back at the restaurant.”

They were interrupted by painful ragged breathing. Kazumono staggered up to holding a silver briefcase and smelling so sweaty the Riders could smell it through their masks. “I might have the answer, Riders-san…!” He flipped open the case and revealed a row of white Gashats. Pulling one out showed a label reading “Doctor Mighty” and showing the Mighty character wearing an old-fashioned doctor’s head mirror and stethoscope. Strangely the clear circuit panel on the top was only about half as tall as the ones on the other Gashats he used.

Utsura handed it to his mother and guided her in putting her fingers around it and positioning her thumb over the trigger button. Emi pushed down on the button and a blue glow came from the clear circuit board on the top. It spread over her body and cleared up a second later, but the flickering pixels all over her were gone. On her arm was a perfectly normal-looking cut.

Sling looked at the case and took out another one. “Will this work on all that?” he said, pointing at the building that almost totally pixelated behind them. Kazumono nodded around his pained panting, so Sling loaded it into the second slot on the cylinder of his Pamaka.

“ **Doctor Critical Finish!** ” He pulled the trigger and it fired a glowing blue projectile that looked like the Mighty character engulfed in a fireball that ran high up into the sky then popped, showering blue light over the city. Bit by bit the retro game look that had covered the building and the streams of numbers floating in the air broke down and disappeared.

“Good job, Kamen Riders,” Kazumono had recovered his breath enough to say. “Would you mind handing those back now?”

“Awwww,” Emi moaned. “Can’t I keep it as a souvenir from when I met Cowboy Rider-saaaan?” she said, sounding like a proper fangirl.

Sling grunted. “Not _cowboy_.”

But Kazumono shook his head. “I’m afraid not. These are entirely proprietary…we don’t want to give those monsters the chance to get their hands on one and find out how they work. Even if so far they’re only good for one use each.” Indeed, the clear circuit panel on the Gashat in Emi’s hand had gone black. Sling pulled out the one in his Pamaka and it had blacked out too.

Utsura pulled both of his Gashats out of his belt and was relieved to finally have the chance to change back to normal. “That’s pretty impressive since you guys lost all the data for these, right?”

The tech nodded. “A lot of our team’s been allocated to making these work as well as we can.”

Sling climbed onto the back of his steampunk motorcycle. “I’ll be back for when you’ve got one ready for _me_.”

“Wait, cowboy-san!” Emi yelled and ran up to him, pulling a giant bullet with its front flattened out of her pocket. She pulled her phone out of her other pocket and tossed it to Kensei. “Take our picture!”

Sling looked at her, and Kensei thought he could see disbelief in the Rider’s giant masked eyes. But a second later he drew his gun and held it pointed upward in a macho pose as Kensei snapped a picture of him and Emi holding up the flattened bullet—the one he’d shot out of the air.

“It’s been an interesting night, Hidenaga. We can talk about how you’ll pay me back soon.” Then without another word Sling was speeding away, and Kensei was feeling more confused about what was going on than ever.

            Emi turned to her son, smiling but with sparks dancing in her eyes. “Kensei-kuuuuuun…I want to hear _all_ about how you became a hero!”

            Kensei looked down at the orange Mighty Sketch Gasthat in his hand, and thought for a second on how he was deeper into this than ever. Then he thought about a piercing scream as Kazumono ran into the parking lot pulling at his hair.

            “My car! My brand new car! My father-in-law got me that as an engagement present! What happened?!” the tech screamed as he looked down at the jagged wreck that had been a shiny new convertible not even an hour before.

            “Sure, I’ll tell you all about it!” Kensei said, running out of the parking lot and down toward the main road. “ _After_ dinner, huh??”

            Emi watched him run, then shook her head and smiled. “It looks like an exciting world the two of you must live in.”

            Kiiko just shrugged and smiled slightly. She was going to let Kensei answer that one. It was what he’d said he wanted.

 

**See you next game**

**XXX**

**Well, here we are, the New Generation Gamer Riders getting their first glimpse of upgrades, and finding out their enemies are something more than just a new group of Bugsters.**

**The Mighty Sketch Gashat was inspired by the old game Mario Paint, a much-beloved older part of the series.**

**The kaijin of the last two chapters was also based (very loosely) on Mario Paint, from a mode it had where you could swat bugs to get used to using a mouse with your Super Nintendo. The final boss was called King Watinga (really, look it up).**

**More mysteries, though. What exactly are the Corrupture like, and why is Sling doing favors for Utsura all of a sudden? Time will tell, time will tell…**


	8. Achievement Unlocked: Fury of Cuisine

 

            The two Rider Gashats—En En Chambara and the brand new Mighty Sketch—seemed to glow faintly in Emi Hidenaga’s hands as she held them up, her eyes wide and dancing as if this was a religious experience for her.

            But then, it practically was.

            “Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner, Kensei-kun?” she asked, her eyes still fixated on the Gashats.

            “Let’s say I was hoping for a better time,” he answered. “When it wouldn’t have been as dramatic as when a giant bug caved in the wall of the restaurant.”

            She set them down on her small kitchen table for him to take back, which he did. The brightest smile he’d ever seen was on his mother’s face, but he knew behind that she was still a tiny bit disappointed he hadn’t turned out to Kamen Rider Sling.

            “So…does this mean you know who the cowboy Rider really is?” she asked right away, confirming it.

            “Yes I do,” Kensei answered, but quickly made a point to add, “but I can’t tell anyone. Professional courtesy.”

            “Not even to your _mother_?”

            He shook his head. “Sorry. As a hero I have to be kind and respectful to everyone, especially the ones who fight the same danger I do, right?” Kensei asked, hoping she bought it. He didn’t need her to start leaning on him to make friends with someone like Yoshoku Kasuga.

Before, the last thing he would’ve had for Yoshoku Kasuga was _respect_. Now he was trying to figure out if he should have a little fear; Yoshoku had dropped hints he’d been helping fight King Gnatinga and Crimson Candy because he expected something in return for it later. Kensei was a little worried about what it would be.

She shook her head but smiled anyway. “It doesn’t matter, I still have that picture to prove we met. But you! You’re a _superhero_! Just think if Yuuma knew about this!!”

“Well, kaa-san, that’s kind of part of the mystery.”

“…what do you mean?”

“What I mean is, my Gamer Driver was mailed to me. The name of the person who sent it _was_ Yuuma,” Kensei explained. “And before you ask, no I don’t know how. Part of the reason I’m doing this is to find out what’s going on.”

            “Ooooh! A mystery!” his mother squealed in excitement. “But Yuuma thought you could save the world with this…I’m so proud, honey!”

            Kensei shrugged, trying to play it down a little so his mother wouldn’t get too carried away with the discovery of him being a Kamen Rider. He already knew it was probably hopeless. “At least until the old Riders come back and take over,” he said.

            “You don’t think they’ll want your help??”

            He shrugged again. “They always tell me you should leave dangerous work to the pros.”

            She stood up suddenly, noisily forcing her chair back across the floor. “Then you need to be a pro when they get back!”

            Great. Now there were _two_ Kiiko Mishiranus in his life.

 

XXX

 

            A few days later, Kensei was still wondering about his last run-in with Yoshoku, and why he hadn’t heard a word from Doku in all that time either. The angry nerd who was his fellow Rider showed up at class, but avoided Kensei’s eyes and didn’t say a word to him. If Kensei headed in his direction then Doku stared hard into his books to ignore him or walked away as quick as he could without drawing attention.

            Yoshoku was different, though. Whenever Kensei left his classroom or walked around campus, even when he left to go home Yoshoku seemed to be there, impossible to miss with the crowd of fawning girls around him. And he was always looking right through them at Kensei, his expression blank but at the same time there was a hard glint in his eyes.

            Then at the end of one day Kensei was getting on his bike to ride home with Kiiko already on hers, when Yoshoku suddenly rode up and skidded to a stop blocking their way. “Hidenaga, you and I need to talk,” he said simply.

            Kiiko nodded. “It’s about time. Where—”

            He cut her off with an icy glare. “Not you, just him and me. And let’s hurry, it’s important and I didn’t get as much of a head start as I wanted.”

            “A head start? From—” Kensei started to ask until Yoshoku cut him off with the same glare.

            “You know exactly from what! Let’s go!” Yoshoku snapped.

            Kiiko lightly grabbed Kensei by the shoulder. “Be careful, okay?” she whispered.

            “Around him? All the time,” Kensei whispered back.

Kiiko smiled a little, reassured, but then the air was split by a single cry from numerous voices. “KASUGA-SAMA!! WHERE DID YOU GO?!?” Yoshoku was already biking away from the school as fast as he could as the huge shadow of a writhing mass of smitten teenage girls started coming around the corner. Kensei rode off too, not crazy enough to get caught between Yoshoku and his fangirls.

After they were out of sight the first of a group of breathless girls came around into sight. “Hey, you!” one of them called out to Kiiko. “Did you see where Yoshoku was going?”

“Oh, you mean that really gross guy?” Kiiko answered.

She rode away from the screaming mob of revenge-crazed girls grinning like a demon.

 

XXX

 

They rode for a long time until they got to the river running through the district. Yoshoku walked his bike down to a concrete platform underneath a bridge. After he was sure nobody could see them, Yoshoku let out a sigh. “Well, let’s get down to business.”

“Business?” Kensei asked disbelievingly.

“Yes, business. I didn’t help you out of the goodness of my heart the other night.”

“Yeah, god forbid,” Kensei muttered.

“What was that?”

“What do you _think_ it was?” Kensei replied. Somehow he felt like the burden of not setting off the other Riders so that they didn’t reveal anything about him didn’t seem to be there anymore. “You think the old Kamen Riders fought all those times to get a cash prize or a big house or a fancy car or something?”

That made Yoshoku stare at him in annoyed irritation. “Do you think I have to bust my ass to get anything like that, if I want it?” Kensei just arched an eyebrow, not saying anything. What could he say to a question like that anyway? “Do you even know why I make fun of your brother so much?”

            Kensei shook his head.

            Yoshoku went and leaned against a pillar, then folded his arms in front of him. “All right, you know who Shintaro Wadari is, though, I bet.”

            “Yeah, he’s supposed to be the president of kendo club,” Kensei answered. “He hasn’t been there for ages, though. Too busy getting ready to go to university in some other country—”

            “Spain,” Yoshoku interrupted.

            “What?”

            Yoshoku repeated himself, “Spain. He’s getting ready to go to university in Spain. And he isn’t bothering with kendo because he’s the star player of the soccer club too, did you even know that? That’s how he met his new girlfriend and a big part of why he impressed a school in another country to take him. They’re even paying to let his new girlfriend attend too.”

            “ _Who’s_ paying for this? Who’s so impressed with him?” Kensei asked.

            “Our parents! Who else??” Yoshoku snapped and stood up from where he was leaning to take an angry step closer to Kensei. For a second Yoshoku looked as if he was ready for a fight, but Kensei scowled back at him and Yoshoku stopped. He took a breath then went back to leaning on the pillar. “He’s my half-brother, that’s why our names are different. But since he’s older, and his father’s the one with all the money, Shintaro’s the one who’s always been his favorite.”

            Kensei just looked at him and digested the information for a minute. Yoshoku was starting to look annoyed at getting no answer at revealing something so personal about himself before Kensei replied. “And what does that have to do with my brother?”

            “You ought to know, you think so highly of him. Yuuma Hidenaga was the best athlete in school, and the one who was so popular with the girls. Our father picked him out to be Shintaro’s rival…he thought having a prominent rival would make Shintaro seem more impressive, to help him get attention. Our father steered things around so Shintaro got to be first-string on the same teams as your brother, so people could see them at the same time and make it seem like they were competing.

“Ever since our father had that idea, he hasn’t said a word to me. He spends all his time trying to make Shintaro look better. Ever since your brother got killed by the Bugsters, Shintaro’s been the most popular guy in school since he outlived his rival.”

            “That seems so rough for you, with all those girls who follow you around, hoping to be Mrs. Yoshoku Kasuga,” Kensei said.

            The next thing he knew, Yoshoku was right in his face and had grabbed him by the shoulders. “Don’t you dare insult me on _this_ , Hidenaga!” he yelled. “You think they’re impressed by things I did, or what kind of person I am? They always chase me around because I’ve got some good looks and I’m Shintaro Wadari’s kid brother! I have to sneak away from them _every single time_ I go out to fight! Every time _I_ try to accomplish something!”

            After a second Yoshoku calmed down and stepped back, then went and leaned back on his pillar again. “I want to _grab this chance_! To actually do something great, to be better than my stupid brother who’s always had our father arranging everything for him! I don’t care if I’m wearing a mask when I do it, _I’m_ going to be the one who takes care of these new monsters…and to do that I need all the power I can get, and _you_ are going to make sure I get it.”

            Kensei narrowed his eyes as he heard that. “You mean stronger Gashats? You could just try playing along with the company that makes our stuff, you know.”

            “I’m doing this _my_ way, and that means doing it by myself. And you _owe_ me, Hidenaga,” Yoshosku said sharply. “When your mother was injured I took her with me so you could focus all your attention on that bug, and when that cowgirl attacked us I fought her off. Ask your mother, she’ll tell you all about it.”

            “Yes, she would,” Kensei said under his breath.

            Then Yoshoku nodded. “So you’re going to tell me when the next Gashat is ready, and you’re going to give it to me.”

            Kensei chewed at his lip. “And if I don’t, you’re going to come after my mother, or something?”

            But Yoshoku shook his head and walked past Kensei to where he’d parked his bike. “No, I’m not. But you’re going to give me what I asked for anyway. You owe me.”

            Then he rode away.

 

XXX

 

            After that Kensei stopped at his mother’s house, but she honked the horn of her car, already sitting in the driver’s seat. He rode over to the window which she slid down, revealing his mother’s grinning face she’d had ever since she found out he was a superhero.

            “Are we going somewhere, mom?”

            “Yeah! I found out about this monjayaki place that’s supposed to be good. You like that, right?”

            “What? Really??” Kensei asked, and his mother smiled even wider at his excitement. He pulled himself back and coughed to collect himself. “What’s the occasion?”

            “My little boy’s going to save the world! What’s a better occasion than that?”

            He chuckled a little and looked away, feeling self-conscious to say the least about his mother’s gushing. “What about having actually saved the world? We hardly know anything about what’s going on…”

            “You’ll need all your strength to do that! Hop in and let’s eat!”

            Kensei shrugged then put his bike away before getting in the car. As his mother pulled away from the curb, Kensei had a thought and got out his phone, and start writing a text to that familiar UNKNOWN number.

            “Hey Kazumono. Hate to bother you but any idea when the rest of the Level 3 Gashats will be ready?” he entered, then hit send.

            It only took a second before he got an answer. “Any time.”

 

XXX

 

            The Game Scope in his hand was getting warm from how long he’d been using it. The device was state of the art, but Yoshoku felt like maybe it was time to give it a break. He’d been scanning for two solid hours looking for something, anything indicating the Corrupture had shown up again.

            After telling Kensei his story, he was starting to go crazy just sitting around the empty house. Yoshoku needed to get out and _do_ something. To have an enemy to beat. It had gotten bad enough he almost didn’t care about when the new Gashat was coming.

            Finally the growling of his impatient stomach told him to go down to the kitchen and make something to eat. The cook would’ve gone home; Yoshoku had been too focused on finding some trace of the Corrupture he’d ignored questions about dinner.

            Maybe he’d make some oden or something. It’d been a long time since he’d made that. Still, he was pretty sure he remembered the routine. Shouldn’t be too hard, as long as the fridge was full.

            Wasn’t it always, though? But did he want to go to all the trouble of preparing a whole meal for himself? Having to pay attention to the cook time when he really wanted to be out kicking butt, and getting every single ingredient ready for blending? When all he wanted was something to make his stomach quiet down?

            But as he went down the list of all the ingredients he’d need, Yoshoku realized that _was_ something he wanted to do. Cooking himself a meal was something that would demand a lot of thought to do it right, and would take his mind off of waiting around for an enemy to show itself so he could blow them away. Besides, it was a skill he had. How many actually skills did Shintaro have…?”

            As Yoshoku went down the stairs he glanced out the window. Then he stopped short.

            Had he just seen the pieces of a giant hamburger fall from the sky one by one?

            A hamburger covered in garish colors and pixel lines.

            Yoshoku ran down to the kitchen and wolfed down a couple of rice balls. A minute later he running out the back stairs for the rear gate to the house. Another sweep of his Game Scope confirmed it: another missing Gashat had gone active and was spreading.

            Looked like they’d be needing a hero. Right when there was one who needed a target.

 

XXX

 

            People ran away in a screaming panic as a layer of pixels crawled over the buildings and streets. Giant grills, shelves full of giant condiment bottles and sacks of lettuce and tomato slices, meat patties and sesame seeds were forming everywhere the Game Area covered. Conveyor belts strung themselves through the air and some invisible force started to pick up the buns, patties, lettuce and tomato and drop them on the belts.

            The condiment bottles floated into the air and started splattering ketchup and mustard onto the beef patties. They rolled to the ends of the conveyor belts, then dropped off the ends and splattered on the floor.

            But still the ingredients floated onto the belts and the condiment bottles covered them. With no-one to put them together they just rolled off the conveyor belts and fell on the floor making a bigger and bigger mess.

            Then something even stranger happened. A pickle slice with an angry frowning face along with stubby arms and legs came out of a small door in the wall carrying a yellow ladder. He leaned against one of the conveyor belts, climbed up, and started kicking the burger ingredients off the conveyor belt only halfway down. A minute later a strange white creature with a scowling face in a yellow bulb in its middle—a fried egg—came out of a door with a ladder it set up next to one of the belts and started kicking ingredients on the floor too.

            Then at the point where the conveyor belts ended the ground cracked, and a huge hamburger pushed itself up through the floor. In the side facing the belts a bite had been taken out, and inside was a smooth black face with a gaping mouth and dark green eyes. He opened his mouth and yelled “FEEEEEEEEEEEEED MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

            Through the crowds of people running away so they weren’t caught inside the Game Area, Yoshoku Kasuga pushed his way up to it and then walked through the edge. It felt like he was suddenly walking underwater, then he popped out the other side inside the giant kitchen. The pickle and fried egg stopped what they were doing as they saw someone able to get into the Game Area, and even more strangely, wanting to.

            “So you’re the enemies in this game, huh?” Yoshoku said, his familiar sneer coming back as he spotted the goofy enemies of this game. “I’ll have this taken care of in no time.” He slapped the Gashat in his Pamaka up and pulled the trigger. Its power shot out and then whipped back and covered him in his blue armor, his hat and poncho spinning through the air and coming to rest on his shoulders. Again he’d become Kamen Rider Sling.

            But the two living food creatures just looked at him for a second and went back to kicking burger ingredients off the conveyor belts. Sling grimaced behind his mask and fired a bullet at the pickle who only grunted and staggered back a few steps. Then he recovered and started kicking buns and patties off the conveyor.

            Nothing happened. He’d hit the monster dead on but it hadn’t been hurt at all. Sling shot again and the pickle staggered back again, gave him an annoyed lock and then picked up a giant bun and threw it at one of the giant ketchup bottles to knock it away. Behind him the giant burger creature coming out of the ground yelled again, “FEEEEEEEEEEEEED MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

            Was that how you won this game? Feeding that thing? Sling looked around but couldn’t see the telltale glow of the Rider Gashat whose power was creating all this. But if that was what he was supposed to do, how could he make sure the giant hamburger-thing got to eat? That was the challenge of the game, Sling supposed. He ran to one of the ladders and hauled himself up to the conveyor. He jumped over a lettuce leaf as tall as he was to where a bottom bun was coming, grabbed a beef patty and dropped it on the bun.

Next he grabbed one of the giant lettuce leaves but as he dropped it on his half-done burger, he spotted the pickle-man running down the conveyor belt reaching out for Sling’s neck. Then one of the giant ketchup bottles started floating over and Sling jumped up to grab it and pointed it at the pickle just as it blasted, knocking the pickle-man off the belt. He hit the ground with a splat, then got right up and ran for the ladder to come after Sling again.

“Can’t you get rid of these guys at all?” Sling moaned out loud.

“Of course you can’t!” said a voice from behind him, as Kamen Rider Rune appeared out of a cloud of mist behind him. “The way you win Ju Ju Burger is making the best hamburgers and feeding Burgemon. You can knock the enemies down but they always get back up and keep coming!”

The pickle-man grimaced even harder as he got back onto the belt. “Looks like we’ve got some real pros here, Egg-san!”

“Too bad _we’re_ the ones with the brains, Pickle-san!” the fried egg-man yelled back. He grabbed a giant slice of cheese, rolled it up and tossed it through the air at Rune. As it came down it unrolled again, threatening to smother the wizard Rider.

Rune lifted his wand and a small fireball shot from the tip, tearing the wall of cheese apart. He looked over at Sling as the conveyor belt they were on rolled along and Pickle-san ran up, Sling firing his gun over and over but Pickle-san jumping over every bullet. He shouldered Sling out of the way before kicking the half-finished giant burger the Rider had made on the floor.

 And then the air seemed to shake with an angry cry.

“FEEEEEEEEEEEEED MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

 

XXX

 

Kensei’s phone went back into his pocket and En En Chambara came out. He saw the giant burger ingredients falling from the sky, but the window from the Game Scope’s scan showed two bright orange shapes inside. Sling and Rune were already inside.

He hit the trigger button and slid the Gashat into his Gamer Driver. As his Utsura armor finished locking into place his mother came running out of the restaurant. She was smiling as he jumped on his ghostly horse armor.

“Going out to save the world, honey?”

“Not exactly,” he said before riding off at top speed.

 

XXX

 

 

Sling fired a blast of black smoke into Pickle-san’s face but the strange monster came charging right through charged into the Rider and knocked him down.

It was just no good, his powers did nothing against the enemies in this game. He looked over to see Rune conjure up a small tornado from his wand to push Egg-san back, but that bought Rune the time he needed to kick the top bun onto a giant hamburger, lift it over his head and fling it through the air to the giant yelling hamburger creature, Burgemon it would seem, who reached up and devoured it then gave a satisfied belch

Then another pile of food dropped off the end of the belt Sling was on, and Rune yelled over at him. “Hey, pay attention, you! If the pile of ruined food on the floor gets too big Burgemon gets angry and you lose the game!”

“What happens then?” Sling called back.

“Let’s _not_ find out, huh?!” Rune yelled. He waited as Egg-san charged him, then suddenly dodged to the side and stuck out his wand tripped the food monster with it. Then he grabbed a sizzling beef patty and threw it onto a bun to start making another hamburger.

Sling jumped back up and hissed in anger. He wasn’t used to being in a situation like this where fighting wouldn’t do him any good. How could he focus on building those humongous hamburgers at the same time he was ducking Pickle-san? Maybe if he played these games…

Rune threw another completed burger into Burgermon’s mouth, and as a giant burp came Sling knew he’d have to figure it out fast.

Pickle-san ran at him again, pudgy hands reaching for Sling. The cowboy Rider shot at him again, and this time Pickle-san was smiling as he was only knocked back a step before he charged again. But suddenly Sling holstered his gun, grabbed a giant lettuce leaf and threw it just where Pickle-san’s foot was coming down.

The giant pickle yelled in surprise as he slipped on the leaf and started tilting backward. Sling jumped to one of the floating mustard bottles and aimed it at Pickle-san. A shot of mustard hit Pickle-san right in the face and knocked him off the conveyor belt. Sling jumped back down to the belt, pieced together a burger and even waited for a shot of ketchup and mustard before tossing it to Burgemon, who gave out a satisfied belch. Sling served another hamburger and was halfway through putting together a third by the time Pickle-san had gotten back up on the conveyor belt.

This time he didn’t attack, though. Instead he put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. More doors in the side of the room opened, and more walking food came out. A giant French fry that wobbled back and forth as he ran over, his tiny face at the very top of his skinny body growling ridiculously.

And right after Fry-san came a steaming slice of apple pie, which yanked a gob of fruit out of itself and threw it at Rune, who deflected it with a fireball before he turned and shot a burst of his “slow” spell at Egg-san who was coming at him from the other side. But Egg-san was moving a little faster with every step and was clearly already shrugging off the effect.

Sling threw another finished hamburger then braced himself as Pickle-san and Fry-san fenced him in on both sides of the belt. Suddenly Pickle-san took a running start and then tucked in his arms and legs and started rolling down the belt like a wheel with his ridged edges looking like they could smash Sling to bits.

And on the other side Fry-san ran at Sling too, lowering himself like a deep-fried battering ram. Sling gasped then whipped out his gun and shot at Pickle-san, but this time it didn’t even slow him down. Instead Sling turned and ran straight at Fry-san. When he was just a second from crashing right into the fried horror, Sling suddenly threw himself on the belt and slid forward underneath Fry-san’s tiny legs.

The two food enemies screamed as they ran into each other. Fry-san crashed into Pickle-san and made a sound like a wrecking ball caving in the side of a house. Pickle-san went flying off the belt and a blast of ketchup knocked the dazed Fry-san off the belt next. Sling laughed at the top of his lungs. “I can’t believe you thought you had me trapped that easy.”

He turned and tossed a greasy beef patty onto a bun, and in the second he was distracted at trying to win the game, he didn’t see his enemies making a counterattack. Pickle-san landed on his back, and Fry-san bounced off him like a trampoline. The killer French fry came shooting back up and crashed into Sling right in the chest. Sling barely had a chance to gasp in pain before he went flying. As he hit the ground and finally skidded to a stop he was at the edge of the Game Area.

Coming down the street toward it was a red and yellow shape it took Sling a second to recognize through the haze his head was in after taking a hit that hard. As it stopped next to him and blew a puff of weird cold smoke into his eyes, he realized there was only one thing it could be: Kamen Rider Utsura.

And he pulled something out of his belt: a dark red Rider Gashat. Sling dragged himself up. “Is that…?”

“It’s the one they just finished,” Utsura said as he jumped down, his ghostly horse Cruiser disappearing back into its icon. “Are you sure this is the one you want, thought?” He held out the Gashat in his hand for Sling to inspect. Its label said SCORCHING KITCHEN and it showed a chef cutting into a hunk of meat as a wall of flames stood behind him.

            “Actually, that’s _exactly_ the one I want,” Sling said, his voice taking on a grinning tone, and grabbed it then slapped it into the auxiliary slot in the cylinder of his Gamer Pamaka.

            “Now we’re even,” Utsura said, getting out his new Mighty Sketch Gashat. Sling held up his hand to stop him, though.

            “Not yet, Hidenaga,” he said. “Let me be the one who finishes this fight. Then you won’t me anything.”

            Utsura looked at him for a second, then nodded. “You touch the Gashat and you let it go. You try and keep it, and the deal’s off.”

As soon as he finished Rune cried out in fear as a huge chunk of hot apple pie filling hit him in the shoulder. Egg-san crouched down then threw himself over an icicle storm from Rune’s wand that went wide and crashed down on Rune himself. The Rider was knocked flat on his back and Egg-san started oozing down and covering his body, grinning evilly.

            Sling nodded back. Then he pulled the trigger.

            “ **Comestibles Level 3.”**

            A window showing the superhuman chef on the label of the game appeared and a squat red robot with a mushroom-shaped head came flying out of it, the Kitchen Gamer. “ **PLAN THE COURSES! MEASURE THE SPICES! MASTER THE RECIPE!** ”

            The Kitchen Gamer split apart. Sling’s poncho and hat floated away and the robot’s rectangular arms attached to the outside of his forming small pods. Its torso split in half revealing a red apron and a bandolier covered in jars of colorful powders and liquids that both dropped over Sling’s torso. A round plug dropped down and attached to the back of his gun its holster. Its body and legs split and attached to Sling’s forming thicker armor.

            Finally the robot’s head attached to the top of Sling’s, forming a red chef’s hat.

            “Let’s clean up this kitchen,” Sling said.

            The pod on his left arm popped open and a giant egg whisk popped into his hand. He took a running start and jumped to the belt where Egg-san was trying to smother Rune, and jammed the huge whisk into the egg monster’s back then spun suddenly. Egg-san gasped as Sling yanked him into the air with the whisk buried in his slimy back. Sling threw Egg-san onto the floor with all his might, and the egg screamed as he went down and splattered against the floor.

            “Guess _these_ weapons work on these monsters,” Sling said, a smug tone creeping into his voice. Pie-san stopped in the middle of picking another projectile out of his body, and Fry-san and Pickle-san stopped their mad run over to the belt he was on. Now it seemed the enemy they’d been knocking around like he was nothing was a real threat.

            And Sling made his move before they had the chance to get it together and attack again. He jumped off the belt, coming down at Pie-san, who yelped in fear and threw his steaming hot gob of apple mush at Sling.

He slid the whisk back into the pod on his arm and a giant spoon popped into his hand instead. With incredible accuracy he scooped the apple chunk out of the air with the spoon then whipped around and threw it right back. It slammed into Pie-san who flailed and wobbled for a second before Sling came down in a fierce kick that slammed into the food monster with both feet and sent him sliding across the room.

            Rune just stared after Sling as he charged into battle in an apron and chef’s hate. “ _That’s_ his power-up??”

            “I asked him the same thing, he said he wanted it anyway,” Utsura shrugged.

            “FEEEEEEEEEEEEED MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!” screamed Burgemon. Big cracks started forming in the ground around him as another loud of burger ingredients added to the mess on the floor.

            Rune yelped and rans for the conveyor belts again. “We’re running out of time!” he called over his shoulder to Utsura, who shook his head at the weird game he’d landed in this time and jumped to the belt himself.

           

XXX

 

            Sling reached for the gun its holster and pulled a jar of dark red powder off his bandolier then screwed it into the new socket on the back of the gun. He pulled the trigger and a bullet shot out at the crowd of stunned food enemies. It exploded and showered them with red dust, and immediately the food enemies started to yell and sneeze. “Pepper! Flaming red hot pepper!” Fry-san screamed as he tried to knuckle it out of his oversized eyes.

            Pickle-san came rolling at Sling. This time the Rider stood his ground. As the giant pickle loomed over him the pod on his left arm popped open and fed an oversized rolling pin into his hand. He held it up and blocked Pickle-san’s crazed rolling attack, his grooved edges grinding against the edge of the rolling pin but Sling pushed back and with a powerful shove sent him rolling the other way. Pickle-san slid into the mess on the floor that was Egg-san, who growled angrily at him. “Watch it, you idiot!”

            Pickle-san pulled himself up, his face covered in white goop as Sling put his gun away and the pod on his arm popped open and a ridiculously big knife dropped into his hand. “This guy might actually be dangerous,” Egg-san scowled. “Let’s show him our best trick, huh?”

            “You might be the smart one after all,” Pickle-san grunted, but whistled and the other two food monsters ran over and gathered around them. A cloud of dust rose up, and Sling’s hand went to his gun while he waited for some sign of what they were doing.

            Then suddenly an impossibly long arm that looked like a French fry with a curled fist that looked like it was made of pie crust swung out of the cloud. He jumped out of the way just in time, and could feel the heat of the pie filling on the bottom of his boots as the giant fist went swinging past him.

            The dust cleared and from out of it stood up a culinary colossus. It was made up from pieces of all four food monsters. It had huge pickle slices for feet, big spindly French fries for legs, a huge inverted triangle of a pie slice for a torso with steaming bits of apple mush showing out the sides. Bumpy brown French fry arms extended out into piecrust fists ending in thick, sharp fingertips. And atop this behemoth was an upright fried egg for a head, with Egg-san’s face scowling down at Sling.

            He only scoffed. “That’s your best trick?”

            A hamburger flew through the air over the combined monster and into Burgemon’s mouth. Utsura grunted and threw another that the towering combined monster jumped and tried to swat it out of the air. Sling loaded another jar into the back of his gun and fired. As it hit the monster it hardened into a tough pink shell that froze his arms to his sides.

            “What is this??” he yelled in surprise.

            “Cake frosting,” Sling said.

The monster growled and twisted his body, cracking through the shell. “You’ll fear the Burger Sovereign!”

“Burger Sovereign?? Well, that was close,” Sling said flippantly. Sovereign threw a punch at the tiny Rider. But as it came the pod on Sling’s arm opened and dropped a big egg beater that he loaded in the barrel of the gun. He pulled the trigger and the spinning arm blocked caught Sovereign’s fist. Sparks flew as they pushed back and forth for a second, then the giant fist was suddenly knocked away.

The pod on Sling’s other hand opened and dropped an oversized carving knife into it. He ran at Sovereign with blinding speed and hacked at his French-fried ankle then kept on running. Sovereign fell on one knee for a second then whipped around angrily. His piecrust hands reformed themselves into a spike mace and a huge axe blade, but Sling laughed at him.

“Oh no! Those sure look like they could do a lot of damage!”

“See how well you laugh when you’re in pieces all over the floor!” Burger Sovereign bellowed. His mace-hand came down so hard the air sounded like it was cracking, but Sling had loaded a jar of butter into his gun and shot it onto the floor behind him. He pushed himself with one foot, then was skidding across the floor as Burger Sovereign smashed the floor, missing him by inches.

Suddenly Sovereign jumped and landed behind Sling. He raised his knife but Sovereign swatted it out of his hand with the giant axe-hand, then lifted the piecrust weapon high and swung it down at Sling’s neck. He gasped in fear and flinched back, raising his had up almost as if he didn’t want to see the thing about to end his life.

Then in one sudden movement he loaded something off his bandolier into his gun and sprayed it over Sovereign’s hand. The axe-blade darkened and shattered as it hit the ground at full speed.

“That _is_ some quality olive oil,” Sling said. “But enough playing around.” He slapped the B button until the Gamer Pamaka announced “ **Kitchen Critical Bomber!** ” An oversized spatula popped out of the pod on his right arm and he threw it underneath Burger Sovereign’s giant feet. As it slid across the floor it stretched until it was even bigger, easily 20 feet across. Then Sling jumped on the handle and catapulted Burger Sovereign up into the air.

Then the thicker armor on Sling’s legs split off and formed itself into an 8-sided frame on the ground. Red-hot power started to glow inside it like a burning grill. Sling loaded his gun and fired it into the air.

A second later Burger Sovereign came down right in the middle of Sling’s huge grill, landing hard on his back. Then a rain of sauce splashed down on the food-giant, covering him in a red glaze. Burger Sovereign tried to push himself up, ignoring the pain of touching the grill, but realized he could barely move. Sling’s last shot was draining his strength as it seeped into his body.

Sling stood by the edge of the grill with his big spatula in his hands. “Time to stir in the sauce,” he said, clearly grinning behind his mask.

Then he jabbed Burger Sovereign in the middle pushed him across the grill, bumping him into the side, then pushed him across to the other side, and in seconds Sling was stirring so fast it was just a blur. Suddenly he flipped Burger Sovereign up in the air again, and this time when the monster hit the ground he went still and broke up into a storm of pixels.

            As Burger Sovereign disintegrated, Sling was almost knocked down by a deafening burp. Burgemon slumped back and sighed happily. “Good lunch,” he said and then disappeared in a stream of pixels himself. Where he’d been was a glowing Rider Gashat.

Rune jumped down and started running over to it, but Sling held out his big spatula. “No, it’s mine.”

“ _We_ won the game by feeding Burgemon,” Rune pointed out, but Sling’s hand went to his gun in its holster.

            “And _who_ took care of the monster so you could flip burgers?” Sling growled.

            But then Utsura reached out and put his hand on Rune’s shoulder to pull him back. “He’ll touch it and let it go.” He faced Sling. “Right?” His other hand was clutched around the Mighty Sketch Gashat as he did.

            Sling didn’t answer. He only walked over to the Gashat and picked it up. Immediately the giant kitchen with its grills and conveyor belts started unraveling. The Gashat quivered in his hand but still he held on. Sling walked to one of the fading edges of the area where people were starting to gather to see what was going on.

            He pulled Scorching Kitchen out of its slot and his hat and poncho flew back onto him as the rest of his equipment disconnected and reform into the Kitchen Gamer who flew away. A thin woman with pointed features was the first who came up to him.

            “You’re the one who stopped all that?” she asked.

            He just nodded.

            “What can we call you?”

            “Kamen Rider…Sling,” he said, then let go of the Gashat still in his hand. It spun away into the sky, and after a second the window showing the collected Gashats appeared in the sky, the yellow and red Ju Ju Burger Gashat spinning slowly in the bottom left corner. The chibis of Ex-Aid, Snipe and Brave all stood along the bottom, making ^^-eyes as they all bit into hamburgers.

            Sling walked away, the people gathering him around and starting peppering him with questions about his powers, and one Rune heard was about “sidekicks.” He angrily clenched his Gamer Septa with both hands.

            “So why did you let _him_ be the one to pick up the Gashat?” he whispered furiously.

            “I owed him,” Utsura answered.

            “And if you _didn’t_ owe him, you would’ve stopped him?”

            “Maybe we need to stop thinking we have to fight _each other_ ,” Utsura replied quietly.

            “Oh I’m thinking, all right,” said Rune. “Thinking about how from now on, I need to be first.” Then he pushed the button on the side of his wand and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

 

XXX

 

            When Yoshoku stumbled home, coming in through the back like he’d left to try to make sure he wasn’t seen, he heard a familiar bellowing laugh coming from the living room, joined by a high female laugh. It was Shintaro, and it sounded like that girlfriend of his too, whatever her name was.

            As Yoshoku tried to guess what room they were in so he could get upstairs without running into them the problem solved itself as they stumbled into the kitchen. Shintaro looked the same as always, wide shoulders and powerful jaw, eyes that could nail you to the spot and his bright red letterman’s jacket immaculate as always. A skinny girl, giggling and wearing a shiny black leather jacket, skirt and boots staggered into the room with her arm over his shoulders. She was beautiful, but Yoshoku sighed quietly in disgust at the way she staggered and her glassy eyes. He didn’t need to guess they’d been drinking. Would their father even notice if Yoshoku drank?

            “Heeeeeeeey little brother!” Shintaro laughed, his slurring sounding like he’d had a few himself. “What happened to you?? You lose a fight to one of those girls’ boyfriends or something??”

            The girl laughed at Shintaro’s remark. Yoshoku, too tired to make a clever retort, leaned over into the bathroom and saw himself in the mirror. His hair was a mess and he was developing a huge bruise on one cheek. Most noticeably there was a long dark stain running down the inside of one of his sleeves…was that blood?

            “No,” Yoshoku said, “I _won_ a fight.” He smiled a little at his injuries. They seemed like…trophies. He’d gone one out and fought a killer fast food colossus. Shintaro would never accomplish something like that no matter how long he lived.

Yoshoku pushed past Shintaro and his girlfriend and went upstairs, leaving them staring up after him in surprise.

 

**See you Next Game**

**XXX**

**Well, another chapter down, the dynamic of the Riders evolves a little and another even weirder new Gashat is introduced. Sorry to anyone who’s disappointed I’m not putting in more robo-fists or laser swords, but when I started coming up with my own games to include I felt like I needed to explore genres Ex-Aid itself didn’t to make Utsura its own thing. If that makes any sense.**

**As for my concept of Ju Ju Burger as a game, obviously the main ideas of the enemies were stolen from BurgerTime, one of the only action-genre cooking games out there. You can’t really kill the enemies because the challenge is to finish making the burgers instead of beating them in a fight.**

**But anyway, power-ups in toku can only mean one thing: it’s about to get worse for the heroes. And boy are they going to need those Level 3 modes soon…**


	9. The Capture of Publicity

            “Getting kind of late for you to be here, isn’t it?”

            But Doku Dasao only shrugged at the security guard’s question. “I had to finish my homework, of course. Need to stay a good student, after all. Then I took the train and had to walk the rest of the way. What I came here to get is really important.”

            The guard’s face tightened with suspicion. “And what’s so important?”

            “The newGashat they made for me, of course.”

 

XXX

 

            For the 800th time the image of Kamen Rider Sling releasing the Gashat he’d won into the sky before he was mobbed by onlookers and soon, the press, appeared on a screen Kensei Hidenaga happened to see.

            This time it was over his mother’s shoulder as she watched the evening news, and he got to listen to an anchorwoman’s commentary on what her network had heard happened. She was blonde and beautiful, and Kensei found himself focusing more on that than her story.

After all, he was there when it happened.

            “Once again, the new Kamen Riders have shown their power by purifying a game belonging to their missing predecessors. Sling was the one who saved the day this time, observers saying he made short work of a giant fast food monster,” she said, and the image over her shoulder changed to a blurry one of Sling wearing the red apron and armor-plated chef’s hat of his Level 3 form. He was holding the Burger Sovereign monster at bay with a big eggbeater arm plugged into the front of his gun. Then it cut and Burger Sovereign dropped out of the sky and into the giant grill formed out of Sling’s armor, and Sling started pushing the monster around the grill like he was a giant stir fry.

            “McDonald’s has made a public offer to the New Generation Riders to license their likenesses for the next Happy Set toys. So far no response has been reported…,” the anchor went on, a faint look of disgust on her face for just a second.

            And Kensei’s mother only mostly held in a squeal as she watched the blurry phone footage of the fight the station had gotten their hands on. He didn’t need to be reminded that she was probably Sling’s biggest fan. “Did you know he can cook too??” she asked over her shoulder to Kensei.

            “No, I didn’t. I even asked if he was sure that was the game he really wanted before I gave it to him.”

            “You’re so thoughtful,” Emi cooed, then whipped around to watch the news report again.

            _Then why am I even less sure about this_? Kensei asked himself. He’d given Yoshoku that new power-up Gashat to pay back a debt from an earlier battle, but what was Yoshoku going to do with that power now? Would he still treat Kensei like a hated rival?

            And what about Doku? He’d been furious when Kensei had let Yoshoku take the credit for saving the day in the battle that was all over the news. And more ominously he’d said he’d learned that from now on, he’d have to be first. What would he be willing to do to make sure that happened?

            What would Kensei have to do to keep it from turning into a disaster when it happened?

            And why did it seem like he only had new, worse questions whenever something _did_ happen?

 

XXX

 

            As night settled over the unsuspecting city a dark feline shape jumped from one rooftop to another. A few steps behind was a shadowy figure carrying a bow in one hand who made the jumps just as easily. The rooftops thinned out after a few minutes, and they stopped at an edge looking over a harbor.

            “You came all this way to steal _fish_?” the one with the bow demanded. The other just let out a catlike yowl. “Fine, fine,” the one with the bow sighed.

            “It’s better you aim low anyway,” said a female voice behind them. The feline shape growled and positioned herself to pounce while the other loaded his bow. “Go ahead, see how much good it does,” the female voice said. The arrow shot through the air but suddenly burst into flames before it hit its target. “Now then, have we established who’s in charge here?”

            She snapped her fingers and a glowing purple fairy appeared in the air, the light it gave off covering the rooftop. Closer to the edge was a man in light grey armor with a helmet with the sloping sides of a feudal era infantry soldier. He had a thin mustache and a toothy scowl on his dark purple face. His bow was made of some kind of red wood with a demonic face just above the grip. Next to him crouched a woman, but she had black fur all over her body and the long, articulated feet of a cat. Fang-like teeth stuck out of her upper and lower jaws.

            But the other woman on the other side was more frightening than both of them put together. She had on a lacy black dress and a ruby-studded crown on top of long platinum blonde hair. Her face was taut, like her skin was just a thin layer covering her skull. Her eyes seemed to sit in their sockets, held there just by the sheer force of her insidious power. The two other monsters were pushed back a few inches as invisible waves came off her body.

            “All right, all right,” the archer answered. “What do you want?” he asked, the black-furred woman growling low, though.

            “Bowmaster Tametomo, and Black Tiger, who needs no introduction. You two are hunters,” the woman in the black dress said. “You want to unleash your powers. But the rulers want to create a new world for us, not destroy it.”

            “And who are you, if you’re setting yourself up as the leader?” Tametomo asked.

            “You can call me Queen Akuire,” the lady said. “So now, why don’t we find some place to make pretty?”

            Tametomo smiled. Even Black Tiger seemed to smile, as Akuire walked to the edge and floated down to the ground.

 

XXX

 

            A small red car pulled into the visitors’ lot of Seito University Hospital. Two people got out, a tall woman in a red blazer and a nondescript teenager with something bright pink peeking out of the opening of his backpack.

            “I don’t know about this,” he said uncertainly.

            “A lot of these kids have people in their lives who are still missing,” she replied. “And with the old Kamen Riders still gone they need to know people are looking out for them, don’t they?”

            “Yeah, I suppose they do,” Kensei admitted.

            She smiled. “So just do what you always do.”

            “Mom, what are you talking about? I don’t try to play to the crowd.”

            Emi didn’t seem to hear him, probably on purpose. A few minutes later she was outside a ward full of young children milling around, playing with toys and drawing pictures but looking bored and restless.

            She walked boldly inside and all the kids stopped and stared at her. “Well kids, it’s finally time! The hospital has a very special guest for all of you today! Are you excited??” she asked expectantly.

            “Yeah!!” was the reply, but it only came from about half of the kids. Emi frowned inwardly but hid it well. She looked over her shoulder. That was his cue.

            “Henshin.”

            There was a burst of colored light from out in the hall and taking long, clanking steps in was Kamen Rider Utsura, the heavy orange armor of his art-equipped Level 3 form in place. The pods on his arms were empty of his weird weaponry for the moment, though. Saying nothing, he gave the crowd of kids a salute. “Kamen Rider Utsura, at your service,” he said, not really sure what else to say.

            The room was quiet for a second, then half the kids squealed and ran over and tried to touch Utsura, who almost fell back with all of them pushing against him. “Hey nurse, take my picture!” one little boy demanded as he grinned up at Utsura. When they heard him talking about pictures being taken they started swarming around trying to get in front and crowd the other kids out of the way.

            “It’s just him?” asked one little boy with his hair in a bowl cut, who was hanging back. “I thought Sling would be here too.”

                “Who cares about Sling?” asked a heavier boy. “Snipe is the best Rider. Everybody knows that.”  
            “You’re both wrong!” exclaimed a girl with braided pigtails. “Poppy was the best Rider!”

            The two boys looked at each other for a second then laughed. “Poppy?! She never did anything but fight them and get in the way!” the boy with the bowl cut jeered.

            “THAT WASN’T HER FAULT!” the girl yelled, balling her fists angrily.

            “I bet it wasn’t!” Utsura called out to them over all the noise. “Poppy was the Riders’ friend, right? I heard she helped them stay strong even when things got…um, hard. That’s a pretty brave, uh, thing to do when…you have really powerful enemies, like the Kamen Riders did, right?” he went on. It sounded weird, unnatural coming out of his mouth. He was just saying the kind of thing he figured a hero was supposed to say. Maybe he should’ve gotten more practice before giving in to his mom’s crazy idea to entertain the sick kids. Kiiko would’ve been happy to help…

            “Is he talking about us?” Kiiko asked, looking over at Kensei’s mother, who jumped back in surprise.

            When she recovered a second later Emi asked, “Where did you come from?”

            “I’m always here,” Kiiko said simply as always. “He needs me to keep him focused.”

            Emi glowered a little. “Sounds like you’re taking this ‘trainer’ thing a little too seriously…”

            And at that Kiiko just looked up at her. “Oh? Are _you_ his trainer?”

            “I wanna be the trainer!” yelled a little boy.

            “No, I wanna!” yelled another. Utsura quickly held up his hands for peace.

            “Hey, why don’t we go outside and I’ll show you some really cool tricks my armor lets me do?” he suggested.

“YEAH!!!’  
And Utsura led a parade of jumping, cheering children out the front door.

 

XXX

 

            Two silvery arms snaked out of Utsura’s backpack with brushes on the tips, painting red and yellow circles in the air. They retreated into his pack again and then came out covered in blue and orange, drawing the crude faces and ears of a pair of smiling puppies on the shapes. The arms retreated again and came out with rubber stamps on the end and stamped images of smiling suns and moons all around Utsura’s midair drawing.

            Most of the kids smiled and laughed, but Kiiko frowned slightly. “That’s…okay, I guess.”

            “Give me a break. I’m just getting good at video games, I never thought about being an artist too,” he replied.

            As his backpack closed again and Utsura was wondering what to do to impress his audience next, the girl with pigtails from before walked up to him and prodded his leg to get the Rider’s attention. “Hi there…something you want to see?” he asked her.

            “Um, Mister Rider…I think my pajamas are too light. Could you make them dark pink?” she asked.

            He laughed and for a second she thought he was laughing at her silly request, but then he attached a spray nozzle to the pod on one of his arms. “It sounds like a challenge, but heroes are always supposed to be ready to take care of those, right?” She nodded, smiling now. “All right then, hold nice and still.”

            And Utsura puffed a cloud of pink over the girl’s pajamas and they changed into a dark shade of pink just like she’d asked. She squealed and clapped her hands once. Then another child, the boy with the bowl cut, came over and tapped against Utsura’s side. He stood up and turned around to face the boy. “And what can I do to amaze you?” Utsura asked.

            “Nothing, Mister…Rider?” the boy asked.

            “Utsura.”

            “Uh, yeah…do you know Sling? Are you two friends?” the boy went on.

            The Rider put a hand up to his chin, thoughtfully, and one over Kiiko’s mouth to keep her from cutting loose with how she felt about Yoshoku. “Well, I’m not sure. I mean, we only really run into each other when there’s a monster we have to stop—”

            “But you gave him a new game the last time there was a monster, right?” the boy interrupted. “Why would you give him a power-up if you aren’t friends?”

            The girl frowned. “What do you care so much for, Shuu?”

            “Butt out, Katsumi!” he retorted.

            Utsura tried to think of an answer to that he could tell to a little kid, and after a second he decided he needed to figure out the truth of that himself soon. He’d owed Sling for saving his mother’s life, but had he been hoping Sling might be more willing to honestly work together if he did a favor for another Rider…?

            But then he heard something. And he quickly loaded one of his giant erasers into the pod on his arm. He slashed it through the air and made a black arrow disappear out of the air.

            Standing on the roof of the hospital was the source: a man in grey armor over his dark purple skin with a droopy mustache, holding a bow with a demonic face worked into the top of the grip. “You’re good, Utsura. Just like I heard,” he said, grinning as he loaded another arrow.

            Utsura recognized him: it was Tametomo, one of the enemies from En En Chambara. The bow mode that had been added to his Gashat had been proposed mainly to pacify players who complained that Tametomo had too much of an advantage.

            Well, they weren’t playing by those rules this time.

            “You’re pretty low coming after little kids,” Utsura challenged him.

            Tametomo only sneered down at him. “What better way to cause extinction then wipe out the youngest and weakest?” He aimed his bow high into the sky and fired his arrow. It exploded and started raining baseball-sized orbs of fire down onto the courtyard, and the kids he’d been entertaining screamed and started running around in a panic.

            But Utsura looked up at the shots, and his backpack split open. Two of its skinny arms slid out, each tipped with what looked like a hose nozzle on the end. They zipped back and forth spraying thick clouds of purple and red paint into the air. As the shots came down they burst in puffs of smoke when they hit the cloud of paint that cleared away a few seconds after they were gone.

            “Have to do better than that!” Utsura yelled up at the Corrupture monster.

            Tametomo smiled down at him. “I already did.”

            Before Utsura even had a chance to wonder what he was talking about something crashed into him and knocked him off his feet. A black-furred woman stopped at the edge of the courtyard, the two kids Utsura had been talking to gripped under her arms, then ran off carrying the struggling kids with her.

            “She’s getting away!” Kiiko yelled.

            “Oh no she’s not,” Utsura said, hitting the icon to call his Cruiser.

 

XXX

 

            A minute later Utsura was blasting down the road toward the south of town. He was riding a sleek black motorcycle, but instead of a front wheel there was a giant paint roller, leaving a trail of paint that shifted colors as it picked up speed. First blue, then it turned yellow, and finally red as it hit maximum.

            Kiiko pointed over his shoulder, the glow around her finger brightening as it always did when they were getting close. He just hoped she could sense Corrupture the way she could sense one of the Gashats that had been activated. One emergency seemed like plenty.

            “There!” she yelled and pointed at a small factory building. Utsura leaned hard to pull the Big Roller to a stop and smearing paint all over the concrete. He inspected the building and through the monocle attached to his armored beret he was sure he saw a shadowy form with a bow over one shoulder duck out of sight in one upper window.

            “Stay out here,” Utsura said as he got off. “There’s two Corrupture in there, and I know they’re just waiting for me to walk into their little trap.”

            “You can beat ten Corrupture like that,” she said. Utsura gave a quick thumbs-up over his shoulder and went up to the front door then pushed it open. Inside there was a long, wide room full of conveyor belts and presses. He kept looking over his shoulder expecting to see Tametomo let go of an arrow aimed right at his head.

            Instead, Utsura was surprised to see Tametomo and both that black-furred cat lady standing in the main room, with a lady in a lacy black dress chewing them out.

            “What did I tell you about a body count??” she screamed. “Nobody’s supposed to get hurt! They’re better as converts to our kind!”

            “They’re not dead,” Tametomo said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “They’re to lure that Rider, and he’ll be coming in here any minute. Don’t tell me you think it’s worth it to try to convert _them_!”

            Utsura narrowed his eyes as he tried to place these other Corrupture so he’d know what to expect from them. The cat woman he thought he recognized; it was Black Tiger, a secret challenge mode boss from the game Night of Safari. She was fast and could see in the dark, making her hard to shoot.

            But the woman in the black lace dress was even scarier, and not just for her face. She could only be Queen Akuire, one of the demon king’s strongest sidekicks from Taddle Quest. If she was as powerful as she was in the game, he might be in trouble if he had to fight her, even with his new power-up.

            “Of course we’re not going to convert _them_ ,” Akuire said, then suddenly whipped around and shot a lightning bolt from her fingertip at Utsura’s head.

            He ducked and the lightning bolt blew the front doors off their hinges. But as he went flat his backpack opened and a cannon stuck out and fired a bullet that exploded in the middle of the three Corrupture and splattered stinging paint all over them. Black Tiger roared in anger, her eyes covered by a streak of pink.

            Utsura clenched a fist and allowed himself a faint smile of reassurance. He knew it was risky, but he also knew that if he was quick and careful it was possible to beat even a game’s most powerful enemy even if he was under-leveled. If he could keep the three Corrupture off-balance and keep them from getting organized, maybe he could still win this…

            But if he would he’d have to move before they got the chance. He ran behind one of the machine’s and his backpack slid open. Suddenly _two_ Kamen Rider Utsuras ran out from behind it. He ran to the shadows of another machine, his backpack opened, then again two Utsuras ran out, but this time one of them was wearing his Level 2 samurai armor and wielding his sword.

            Yet again he ran behind some machinery and two Utsuras jumped out from behind it, one Level 2 and one of them Level 3.

But the real Utsura was pushed up to the top of the machine with help from the metal arms coming out of his backpack. Two more reached out and gripped the catwalk above him, then they crawled like a spider like a spider across it. A metal hose slipped out as he crossed another shadow and spat out another fake Kamen Rider Utsura in his art armor. Now he just needed to wait, and strike when the Corrupture were most confused…

            Tametomo shot an arrow with a fork-like tip—one of his nasty bowel-rakers—and fired it at one of the lighter-armored Utsuras. The Rider parried the arrow with his sword, but the Gashacon Tana was knocked out of his hand in the process and went spinning into a corner. The copies closed in to attack from all sides, none of the Corrupture noticed it splatter into a green puddle as it hit the wall.

            Two of the decoys ran around Tametomo in a circle, their feet making small splotching noises he might’ve noticed if he wasn’t trying to pick which one to shoot with his new arrow with its drill-like tip. He waited a second too long to make up his mind and they both started blasting him with bullets of paint that seemed to sting straight through his armor. One glob exploded all over his face and he yelled out in annoyance

            Meanwhile Black Tiger had recovered her vision and pounced at one of the Utsuras strafing Tametomo. She expected to tackle him and bring him down, but her eyes went wide as she crashed into the decoy and his body was sliced in half and fell apart into globs of paint.

            Queen Akuire held up her hands and lightning bolts blasted through two more of the Utsura-decoys into puddles on the floor. “They’re just fake—” she started to yell but then another Utsura swung down from above, a large eraser in the pod on his arm. He slashed it across Akuire’s stomach. She screamed in pain but Utsura just turned and slashed her again with the oversize eraser on his other arm.

            Then he was off and running again. Black Tiger chased after him on all fours, then suddenly his backpack opened and one of the arms snaked out and jammed a rubber stamp into her face, leaving the image of Captain Salty.

            Tametomo fired an arrow right through one of Utsura’s decoys. “Not a bad trick,” he muttered and watched as the extending arms out of Utsura’s backpack stretched and grabbed the ceiling, carrying him out of the way as Akuire sliced her fingers at his head. Her arm turned green and warty with huge long claws, and her teeth grew to points as she screamed in anger.

            Black Tiger growled and was about to jump to attack the Kamen Rider from behind, but Tametom held out his bow to stop her. If the Kamen Rider beat the so-called “queen,” that only proved that holding back was something only an idiot would do, right? There was a slight smile on his face as Utsura dropped back down and sliced his eraser weapons painfully across her back.

            The last Utsura decoy came running at them from behind, his paint guns raised to fire, when another shot rang out. It went right through the decoy, reducing him to a long smear on the floor. The two Corrupture looked behind them, and saw Kamen Rider Sling stepping out of the shadows with his gun drawn.

            “Starting without me?” he asked, then slid Scorching Kitchen into the back up slot and pulled the trigger. The Kitchen Gamer appeared out of its screen, split apart and dropped its pieces over him.

            Tametomo took one look at him and laughed. “I’m supposed to be scared of a cook??”

            Then he suddenly raised his bow to block a swing from Sling’s oversized carving knife on his bow. “Don’t be scared, then,” Sling said. “All I care is if I beat you.”

 

XXX

 

            Akuire went flying into the air, propelled by some unseen force as Utsura came after her again, out of the reach of the metal arms on his back reaching out for her with weapons. She ran down to the barricaded office door where the Corrupture had stashed their young prisoners. If only she could be sure they were all right, then she could face the Kamen Rider without fear.

            But she didn’t get the chance, because just then a hooded shape came crashing through a window and landed in front of the door. The purple robes, the wand in his hand, it was obviously Kamen Rider Rune.

            “Oh no you don’t.”

            Queen Akuire looked him over for a second, a look of surprise on her skeletal face, but she quickly recovered and glared at him. “You’re no match for me, Kamen Rider,” she said slowly and threateningly.

            “Oh, I know you’re powerful,” Rune said. “But so am I.” Then from inside his robe he pulled out a new Rider Gashat, a white one with a black grip guard. The label said “Gamble Paradise” and showed a slot machine and tilted roulette wheel. “In fact, I’m master of the game,” Rune said, then hit the trigger button for the Gashat.

            “ **Poker Face Level 3**.”

            His robe peeled away before he put it into the backup slot on his Gamer Septa. “ **Place the bets. Spin the wheels. Break the bank!** ”

            His wand transformed too, not a white stick with a bird decoration anymore. It had turned into a long black cane with a silver band around the bottom and a clear gem on the top with a pair of white dice clattering around inside.

            A screen showing a crowded casino appeared above Rune and out of it floated a squat white robot with the three windows of a slot machine in its chest and a black cylindrical head. It split apart with its body forming a vest with high armored shoulders, and the slot machine’s windows covering his health bar. The halves of its body attached to his hips. And from inside its body unfolded a long white robe with cluster of dots like the faces of dice all over it that dropped onto Rune’s shoulders. He pulled back the hood just in time for the head to drop onto his own, forming a top hat.

            Rune leaned on his cane like gentleman for a second, then said, “Time to try your luck.”

 

XXX

 

One of Tametomo’s arrows shot through the barrier of paint Utsura had tried to whip up to block it, the fork-like tip digging into his body. He gasped out in pain and the metal arms out of his backpack stuck out wildly then went limp and slithered back inside.

“Didn’t like that, huh, Rider?” Tametomo laughed. Utsura didn’t answer his taunt, just looked around as if for something he could use to even the odds. “Oh, so your little art project can’t save you after all?” Tametomo said with a sneer then whipped out another arrow and shot it, the projectile giving off a wailing sound like an angry ghost.

Utsura turned and jumped down a staircase in the corner, apparently scared out of his mind what the noisy arrow would do to him. As Tametomo chased him down he didn’t even try to hold in a grin. The only thing that arrow did special was make noise.

Tametomo came down the stairs two at a time and jumped the rails to go straight over the landing. But as he did his body shook with horror at what he saw: there was nothing but a jagged edge at the side of the landing where the stairs had broken off and he was looking at a 20-foot drop to the bottom! He tried desperately to stop himself in the middle of his swing and grab the railing but it was too late. He fell.

Then suddenly he bounced painfully off the stairs that had ben painted to look like a collapsed stairway so he’d think he was about to take a giant fall. He rolled dazed and painful to a heap at the bottom.

He somersaulted forward into the room but winced as he landed hard on his bruised ankle. But then Tametomo grinned as he saw Utsura kneeling in the corner of the basement room and clutching his chest where Tametomo’s arrow had hit him a minute ago. In his giant eyes the monster archer was sure he saw fear for his life.

“You _should_ be afraid, little Rider,” Tametomo sneered and loaded his most powerful arrow, the one he’d used to get Utsura’s attention outside the hospital. As he let it go the tip started to glow like the sun and it exploded into a storm of fireballs halfway across the room. They all slammed against Utsura and covered the wall in a billowing wall of flames. After a few intense seconds it died down again and left the floor covered in a layer of ash.

And Kamen Rider Utsura hadn’t moved at all from where he’d been kneeling before all hell had just broken loose. Even though half his head was missing thanks to a circular scorch mark in the wall.

Then suddenly a long green blade seemed to appear out of thin air in the wall near Tametomo and knocked the bow out of his hands. The rough pocked surface of the concrete wall started to slide off a human shape. It was Kamen Rider Utsura, he’d painted himself to blend into the wall while Tametomo attacked a decoy drawn on the other side of the room!

Utsura dropped his Gashacon Tana and locked a paintbrush onto the pod on his arm. He swiped with all his strength and knocked Tametomo back into the wall, leaving a rainbow-like trail in the air for a second. Then his backpack opened and the metal arms slid out, tipped with rubber stamps.

“ **Sketch Critical Finish!** ” yelled Utsura’s Gamer Driver.

“Let’s see how well _you_ take it,” the Rider said.

And then Utsura’s attack came like an avalanche. The metal arms on his back pounded Tametomo over over with the stamps on the ends, leaving colorful marks showing Mighty in different poses. Running, jumping, sliding, swinging his hammer. Tametomo gasped for breath as he was shoved farther and farther back.

Utsura himself battered his enemy using the big brush on his arm. He knocked his enemy off the ground with a powerful punch, then a metal hose snaked out of his backpack and fired a paint ball as big as a cannon shell. It exploded against Tametomo before he’d even hit the ground and blew him into the wall so hard he left a crafter. Then he dissolved into a stream of pixels that floated up through the stairway he’d fallen down only a minute before.

            “Looks like imagination goes almost as far as power sometimes,” Utsura said as he caught his breath. He just hoped he’d be able to keep it up.

 

XXX

 

Above, Rune stuck out his cane and jabbed the icon selecting a Game Area. Around his feet a wave of pixels spread out, filling the inside of the factory with rows of slot machines, roulette tables and with faceless women with shiny black skin and bouncing blonde curls dressed as bunny girls carrying drinks back and forth to nowhere in particular.

Queen Akuire held out her long bony fingers and sparks jumped from her dull red nails. Wherever they touched a skeleton holding a chipped sword popped out of the floor. They turned and locked on Rune with their empty eyesockets, then their faces flickered and were replaced with weird orange, turkey-like shapes.

“Should’ve known, the boss always hides behind an army of flunkies,” Rune said and tipped his top hat back, then raised his cane high and pointed it at Akuire. “Fine, you can see how this works before you feel it for yourself!”

The first skeleton charge him suddenly but Rune casually lifted his cane and parried it. The dice inside clattered around, landing on a 3 and a 5. Then with blinding speed Rune lashed out and caught it on the side of the head with an explosion that had eight black dots in two columns inside it.

He drummed his cane three times on its ribs with small explosions with each blow, 7, 6, 5. His cane swung out and sheared through its arm, sending the bone hand still holding its sword flying over the railing. 4. Rune jumped and went into a spinning kick that connected over and over with the side of its head. 3, 2. Then he stabbed his cane into its ribcage with a last blast, 1. The skeleton exploded into pixels without landing one hit on him.

But the other skeletons closed in on him as a group. “Let’s try your luck, dead guys,” he said, raising his cane high and getting a weirdly mechanical clank sound. Then Rune brought his arm down suddenly and the slot machine bar on his chest started spinning wildly.

The first one stopped with a THUNK, showing the word “Bar” in gold letters. Another thunk and another Bar. Then a third thunk and the last wheeled stopped. Three Bars.

A storm of silver coins gushed out from a chute underneath the slot machine display and pelted the skeletons, but they leaned into it and tried to push their way to their enemy through it. Rune chuckled and leaned forward a little, aiming the spray of coins at the skeletons’ legs instead. The first one was knocked forward and the rest slid and fell on the storm of silver.

The waterfall of coins stopped, but Rune raised his cane again with another heavy THUNK, then pulled down and it started to spin again. This time the left side of a watermelon, the middle of a watermelon, the right side of a watermelon locked into place. A watermelon popped out of his chestplate and then suddenly popped out until it was as big as a car and started rolling over the skeletons. The watermelon split into slices that spread all over the floor and the skeletons dissolved into pixels and floated away as defeated Corrupture always seemed to.

Queen Akuire scowled as two of the bunny girls ran up and curled their arms around Rune’s, cooing into his ears. But he shook loose with an annoyed grunt, not interested in the affections of a pair of game sprites. He leveled his cane at the queen and challenged, “Looks like it’s just you and me now.”

She sneered across the room at him. “You’ll be sorry you said that, _little boy_.”

She wasn’t wrong.

 

XXX

 

On the floor below Sling gasped in surprise as Black Tiger knocked him into the air with a swipe of her powerful claws. As he hit the ground he rolled with the impact from her blow he tucked his knife up against himself to make sure he wouldn’t lose it or cut himself. Then he felt himself hit the wall, and JUMPED up with all his strength to attack. Sling slashed at the feline Corrupture but she was as fast as he’d been expecting and his blade only shaved a few black hairs off her back as she darted away.

She jumped on top of a roulette table that suddenly appeared as the blinding neon lights of a chintzy casino spread down to the floor they were on too. Black Tiger growled and knocked a pile of chips into the air. They pelted against Sling’s armor but he just put his hand on his Pamaka, waiting for the moment to use it.

Black Tiger jumped off the table, knocking it over and spilling chips and roulette balls all over the floor. She was a predator but the one facing her was a powerful hunter himself, and knew better than to give him the chance to pin her down. She galloped on all fours down the rows between the tables and lines of slot machines trying to throw him off.

And Sling ran after her, but went in a straight line behind some slot machines, loaded a jar into the back of the Pamaka, then aimed it high and fired. His bullet exploded near the middle of the ceiling and showered the room with yellow dust. Black Tiger went running straight into a puff of it with her eyes wide open looking for Sling and roared in pain as the mustard powder seeped into them.

He ran then slid underneath a craps table on his belly and fired a blast of high-pressure soy sauce that caught her right in the stomach and pushed her back across the floor until she crashed into one of the tables and knocked it over.

The Corrupture feline growled in frustration but recovered quickly and threw herself at him like a snarling, slashing spear. Sling quickly shoved the end of his gun into the pod on his hip and pulled it out with its eggbeater attachment. He leaned back and jabbed it into Black Tiger’s middle as she tried to rip his face off and pulled the trigger, spinning the eggbeater and tossing her up into the air. Sling jumped and diced across her back with his knife like he was cutting fish, knocking Black Tiger on the ground again.

Before Sling’s feet had touched the floor though, Black Tiger landed on her feet and came shooting back up at him, clawing at his stomach. He let out a strangled gasp of pain but she just charged to press her attack on him.

And that was when Sling loaded butter into the back of his gun, sprayed it on the floor behind himself and then with one foot he shoved himself off down the trail he’d just made, sliding easily out of Black Tiger’s reach as she reached out to disembowel him again. She landed hard on the floor but then started sliding on the trail of butter Sling made! But Black Tiger didn’t have traction shoes like Sling’s combat suit and spun wildly out of control until she crashed into a slot machine and broke it open, coins spilling down over her head.

Sling took aim. “Not that his hasn’t been fun, but time to close the kitchen,” he said, then pulled the trigger. The ring of small barrels around the main one sprayed heavy streams of condiments that smashed Black Tiger back through another slot machine and into the wall.

“ **Kitchen Critical Finish!** ” the Pamaka yelled as Sling instead put it away, then reached behind his back and pulled out a bunch of red peppers clutched between his fingers, their stems lit like fuses.

Sling tossed one handful at Black Tiger and then the other. They exploded at her feet and blasted her up into the air, where she poofed into a cloud of purple pixels that floated out through a window.

            “Never did like cats,” Sling muttered as he left to see where the real action was.

 

XXX

 

A horrible howling wind flew out of Queen Akuire’s hand. It seemed as if the air itself in the small tornado she sent whirling at Rune had turned black. Tiny chattering skulls appeared at the back and got bigger and bigger as they spun closer to run, snapping their jaws open and shut like they were looking for the chance to bite down on him.

Rune picked up his cane and ran, trying to lure Akuire away from the door to the office where he was sure those kidnapped kids were being kept. Poker chips and tables were smashed to little pieces as the skull-tornado ripped up the air behind him. A bunny girl was too slow getting out of the way and blown over the top of a slot machine.

“You’re doomed, Rider!” Queen Akuire yelled as she started up another magical attack.

“Let’s what my friends Jack have to say about that,” Rune said and held up his cane then started to slowly circle it in the air in front of him. Another deadly storm came flying out of her hands, this time of spears made of sharpened bone. But two playing cards flew out of Rune’s cane, Jack of Hearts and Jack of Clubs, and grew until they were as tall as he was and blocked the flying bones.

But before the bones even stopped Queen Akuire was waving her hands and chanting in some language Rune wouldn’t have understood even if he’d been able to hear it over the bones clattering all over the floor. Suddenly a pair of giant skeleton hands appeared, one pushing its way out of the floor and the other on the ceiling. Both of them grabbed Rune around the arms and the legs then started pulling him in opposite directions.

            While he was helpless Akuire grinned and swung her own bony hand straight up. A boomerang-shaped blade of energy shot down the room to cut Rune in half.

            “Hope I can get a blackjack,” Rune gasped in pain as the skeleton hands pulled him in opposite directions. Pain stabbed through every nerve in his body and it felt like he was about ot break even without the blade that was a second away from chopping into him.

            But he held tight onto his cane and pointed it at the wrist joint of the hand from the ceiling. The dice rattled in the gem, and then a playing card shot out, the 10 of Hearts. It hit the elbow with a crack like thunder and the fingers wrapped around his arms weakened for a second.

            In that second another card shot out, the Ace of Clubs. It hit the elbow and there was a huge explosion with a flashing red 21. The bones crumbled and dropped Rune on the floor just before Queen Akuire’s flying blade shot past overhead, just missing him.

            Before the skeleton hand still gripping his legs had a chance to try anything Rune waved his cane and with a hum of power a giant roulette wheel formed underneath them. A big white ball bounced across the room and came down on the skeleton hand’s wrist. As soon as its grip went loose Rune dropped into one of the compartments on the roulette wheel and was spun away.

            Already Queen Akuire was casting a magic spell and a dragon’s skull formed in the air above her head. Rune gasped as it opened its jaws and a ball of dark flame started forming inside. It was time for him to hit with everything he had.

“ **Gambling Critical Strike!** ” He twisted the dial on the top of his cane, making the dice on top rattle around so furiously inside the gem it turned red hot with power.

The dragon skull breathed out its blast of black flame but the gem on Kamen Rider Rune’s cane flashed out shot out a playing card, the 10 of Spades, glowing with energy. It slammed into and pushed back against the black fire. Then another glowing card shot out, the Jack of Spades, and attached to the back of the 10, pushing harder. Another card, the Queen, shot and attached to the Jack, all of them glowing even brighter as their power collected.

Queen Akuire scowled and her hands glowed as she tried to pour more power into her spell. Rune fired off another card, the King of Spades, and then then the Ace, all forming together and cutting right through the dragon’s flame, then through the dragon skull itself. Black fire billowed crazily out of its remains, engulfing Akuire who let out one last scream before disappearing completely.

The familiar victory music played and GAME CLEAR! appeared in the air. The casino started fading away around him revealing the deserted factory again. Rune opened the door to the main office and found the two children from the hospital cowering inside, who looked up at him in worry.

“Are you a bad guy?” the boy asked.

“Do I look like a bad guy?”

“Only bad guys wear hats like that,” the girl said, pointing to Rune’s armored top hat.

He frowned inside his mask. “All that noise you just heard was me fighting the evil queen to save you. Besides, look at my mask. Obviously I’m a Kamen Rider.”

“There are bad Kamen Riders,” the boy said, still not moving.

            “Well, I’m not one. Promise. Let’s go.”

 

XXX

 

When Sling and Utsura got to the main floor there were police sirens flashing everywhere outside, and Rune had already led the two kidnapped kids out and was letting the officers take custody of them. As soon as they were a foot away a female reporter in a black blazer charged up to Rune.

“Looks like we have you to thank for saving these poor kids!” she said forcefully, and before Rune had a chance to respond she turned to her cameraman and followed up, “It would seem to be true: monsters have returned and are menacing our country again. Luckily it seems we also have new heroes to protect the population!” She turned around and forcefully shoved her microphone up to Rune. “Sir, what do they call you?”

“…Kamen Rider Rune,” he said, sounding caught off guard by how hard she was coming on.

“Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Are you the leader of this new group of Kamen Riders?” the reporter asked, and Sling growled at the idea.

“No, but I can tell you this,” Rune said, recovering and speaking like this was something he’d been waiting for a chance to say for a while. He held up his cane with his two Gashats plugged into it. “Getting this was a major surprise. I’ve never been one of those people who was strong, or popular, or who did anything other people cared about before I got this. So I just want to say to everyone out there who feels like that, that you don’t matter or nothing you do matters, it’s not true.

“It’s all about finding a chance to make a difference. Mine was handed to me, but yours is out there too, you just have to look hard enough.”

The reporter pulled back her microphone. “Well, it certainly sounds like we have a worthy inheritor to the old heroes’ legacy here! I think I can speak for all of us when I say _I’ll_ be sleeping easier tonight.”

Behind them, just out of sight, Sling folded his arms and sighed in frustration. He turned to Utsura and asked, “So you’re just going to let him stand there and hog the spotlight?”

“Who cares about who gets it? Isn’t stopping the villains the important thing?’

“You really don’t think he’ll just leave us alone if he gets popular and famous, do you?” Sling scoffed. “You’ve seen how arrogant he is…he’s up to something.”

Utsura wanted to reply that maybe Doku had changed. It had seemed like it for a while that he was loosening up. But there had been what he’d said after the last battle…” Oh I’m thinking, all right. Thinking about how from now on, I need to be first.”

While he was thinking, Sling slipped out of sight. Utsura let him go, but _was_ Rune going to try build up power to use against them? _Did_ Utsura need to stop just being eyes and ears? Did things need him to be more involved than just fighting a monster, and keeping Genm informed about the other Kamen Riders?

And on the roof of the building, an unhurt Queen Akuire spread skeletal wings from her back and flew away.

 

XXX

 

**Well, here we are with another finished chapter. The unsteady dynamic between the New Generation Riders is getting more vicious. Will the Corrupture bosses be trying to set it off soon? Probably. But who are these new Corrupture trying to set themselves up as leaders, and why don’t the other monsters want to join forces with them?**

**Anyway, another unexpected genre for a new Gashat, I’m guessing. As I remember I had the idea when a longplay channel I follow did two in a row based on my personal favorite casino simulators, Vegas Dream and Vegas Stakes. I kind of imagined the Game Area created by Rune to be like Sae’s palace from Persona 5, especially the creepy bunny girls.**

**To GaoGod’s suggestion for unused game genres, thank you for your interest! I do have a big list of Gashat ideas plotted out, and one of them is a stealth game intended for a character I’m really looking forward to using. Please look forward to it too :).**


	10. Alliance Proposed! Case of: Jenkins

            The dark shape in the distance got bigger as it flew closer until it became the bright purple fighter jet with a winking eye painted on one side of her nosecone.

            “Got a present for you, honey!” it, or rather _she_ , squealed in an excited voice as the cannons on her wings blazed to life and chewed a pair of long ditches in the runway behind Kamen Rider Utsura.

            Two metal arms snaked out of his backpack, tipped only with steel grabbing claws this time. They grabbed the edge of a hangar building and yanked him up and out of the way as the jet zoomed by, then reached out for the corner of another building and swung Utsura around in a wide arc.

            The other arm reached out and grabbed the side of the control tower, swinging Utsura even higher and bringing the tail of the fighter jet into sight. The Rider focused the crosshairs in his eyepiece on it as the other arm slid out, a cannon-like barrel on the end, and fired a blast of paint as big as Utsura’s head.

            Even though he was a good few hundred feet away, Utsura could hear the BOOM as his shot made a bullseye on the jet’s afterburner. It shook and then started losing altitude. Ustura sighed in relief as he finally managed to get the upper hand.

            As the jet fell lower and lower the wings and tail snapped off, leaving a feminine robotic form clad in purple armor with rippling pink stripes. The wide barrel of a fighter jet’s machine gun was mounted on her left shoulder and missiles on her sides below her arms. For a mouth she had a smooth metal plate but her electric eyes had long wires for eyelashes.

            Utsura landed behind her from one last swing, his heavy artist’s armor clattering as he stumbled and sank to one knee from his awkward stop. He’d have to see if he could look up that Takuya Yamashiro guy Kiiko had told him about. She said he swung around like that all the time…

“It’s over, Gateline!” he yelled. “Give it to me!”

            The plane-robot actually giggled and winked at him as she held up and teasingly shook an orange Rider Gashat, the label showing a grinning fighter jet and the title JET COMBAT. “If you want it you’re going to have to come get it, sweetie!”

            “…I don’t even want to know what you think is happening.”

            Gateline giggled again and the gun on her shoulder roared, aimed straight at the Rider’s head. He pulled his hand back out from the storage pod on his thigh, with the weapon on his wrist swapped for the head of a spray can. He twisted the knob to turn it up to full pressure and blasted a stream of compressed paint, meeting the flirtatious robot’s bullets in midair and deflecting them away from him.

            “I also don’t know why I tried to reason with you,” Utsura muttered under his breath as he stuck his other hand into its pod on his leg. He pulled it back out again with a wide brush on the end.

            She giggled again as two of the missile on her sides flared up and went screaming across the lot at Utsura. He dodged to the side with the flames of its thrust scorching his armor as it went past. “Feel the heat of my passion, sweetie!” Gateline called, blowing a kiss that actually hung in the air for a second. She fired a blast from the jet on her back, carrying her into the air as she fired off the rest of her missiles at Utsura.

            The Rider gasped in surprise then swiped his brush through the air and a crude drawing of a field of yellow flowers sprang up in front of him. They exploded into a puddle of paint as the missiles hit them, but Utsura wasn’t standing behind them anymore…

            “You gonna make me hunt you down and give you my LOVE?!” Gateline called out, the gun on her shoulder starting to whirr to life again.

            Suddenly Utsura swung down from the shadows of a nearby building, slashing her across the back with a big eraser replacing the spray can on his arm. She yelled in pain as she went spinning away from the force of his surprise attack.

            “Sorry, I like girls who are less…homicidal,” Utsura said, then charged his finisher.

            “ **Sketch Critical Strike!** ” shouted his driver. The paint cannon in his backpack fired a stream that pushed him into the air and as he came down he went into a jump kick aimed at Gateline. His foot connected and knocked her flying through the doors of a hangar so hard they caved in as she disappeared into the darkness inside.

            The Gashat she’d been holding spun through the air and Utsura reached out and caught it. The familiar GAME CLEAR! message appeared overhead and the airfield around him started to disappear as they always did. He almost didn’t notice the stream of purple pixels marking Gateline’s demise flying off into the sky.

            He let the Jet Combat Gashat go, hoping it was finding its way back to the old Kamen Riders as it flew away like the others. But as it did, he saw the shape of another Rider Gashat flying through the air. Looked like there’d been another one after all.

            But then for a second he saw the two Gashats and the ribbon of pixels that had been Gateline all flowing toward the same place: a bright spot of light in the middle of a cloud, with ten black shapes orbiting it.

            The shapes looked just like…

            …Rider Gashats.

            Utsura pulled his own out of his driver and let his armor fade away, leaving ordinary Kensei Hidenaga. What had he just seen, he wondered, but let it rest as his phone was roaring his pocket.

            It was a video link, showing Kamen Rider Rune wearing that new dice coat of his, holding up an unfamiliar Rider Gashat. Looked like the competition had been busy.

 

XXX  

 

            On a screen at the top of the dark, empty room showed Kamen Rider Rune riding a gleaming white motorcycle with roulette wheels for tires. He rode up a halfpipe, shot into the air for a second, then turned and came riding down again. He was chasing after a blue-grey monster with a shark-like head, shock absorbers on his shoulders and a big yellow disc on his chest, riding a BMX bike.

            “See if you can pull this one off, Rider!” the monster said as he launched himself into the air off the end of the halfpipe, lifted himself out of his seat and let the main body of his bike spin around on the front three times in midair. He cheered at his own stunt then it turned into a yelp of pain as a glowing bullet hit him. He hit the ground, and sitting on his steampunk motorcycle with a smoking gun in his hand was Kamen Rider Sling.

            “Nice trick. Too bad it doesn’t help you much when the other person doesn’t care about bike tricks,” he said. He slapped in a code on the buttons on his Gamer Pamaka and a storm of gatling bullets shot into the monster and blew him into a cloud of pixels. They started to rise into the air…then suddenly curved back around and reformed into the same monster riding down the halfpipe on his bike again.

            Just then Rune completed a third flip from one jump and landed on his bike on the rim. Glowing numerals showing 10000 appeared above his head along with an encouraging GNARLY! A golden trophy formed in his hand, then changed into a yellow-green Rider Gashat, SHAKARIKI SPORTS on its label. Rune looked hard at Sling as he let the Gashat fly away.

            “You don’t win this game by killing the opponents, genius,” he said. “You win by doing the best tricks…or by having the most luck.” Rune turned toward the view of the video. “I can see you over there. You shouldn’t be getting so close to the Game Area, even one like this. But since you’re here, I want to say, again, that to everyone who ever felt like they didn’t belong or had nothing to contribute…you do. The world—”

            There was a click and the video shut off. “You get the idea. These new Kamen Riders are powerful but they’re disorganized. Each of them has their own little agenda they’re pursuing,” said a smooth, slightly nasal male voice. “If pushed apart they will be easy prey. But they are not the only annoyance we are gathered here to oppose. There are those among our own kind, who are trying to set themselves up as our leaders, but at the same time trying to deny us what we _are_ , what we _do_. The chance to spread and make a world for ourselves. You have my gratitude for answering my call, but I promise you that more will follow.”

            “Why don’t we start with _them_ , then?” asked a low female voice. “Kamen Riders are one thing, but the rest of the Corrupture know they’re the enemy. If we defeat the Corrupture who are trying to deny the rest of us, _our_ power will be obvious…undeniable. Then we can really start building that army you want.”

            He sighed at the question. “Not a bad suggestion, but the Kamen Riders are much easier to find. Raise a little havoc and they’ll come running. Besides, the more of those cartridges they find and release, the sooner they become twice the annoyance. These other Corrupture will only show themselves when they feel like it, and will require their own special handling. Now, let’s begin…”

 

XXX

 

            “Are you sure about this?” Kiiko Mishiranu said, chewing her lip nervously.

            Kensei was twirling the Gashat for En En Chambara on his fingers over and over again, to get himself ready for the job he’d set himself. “Yeah, things are getting worse and not doing it before now just didn’t make any sense.”

            “But you’re starting with Doku? Isn’t he technically more dangerous?”

            “Technically, yes. But technically no, if those things he’s been saying after his battles lately about wanting to represent geeks are true. And aren’t heroes supposed to believe in the best in people?” Kensei replied.

            “Yeah, but…”

            Kensei smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “If you want to help, I wouldn’t say no. You can warn me if he looks like he’s gonna try anything, okay?” he offered. She bit her lip even harder, looking unsure at his plan. But Kensei was walking off, his mind made up. She picked up her bag and ran after her friend.

She’d pushed him deeper and deeper into this, how could she back off when he went deeper by himself?

            A few minutes later Doku Dasao was heading off campus, avoiding looking at anyone or anything, but holding onto his bag so tight his knuckles were white. The look on his face was so focused he probably didn’t even notice. A group of three girls stopped their conversation as Doku came closer, giving him nervous looks he didn’t notice but he stepped to his side to avoid them.

            Then someone rode by on an old bike and skidded to a stop, blocking the sidewalk. This person Doku bothered to notice: it was Kensei Hidenaga, someone he’d made a point to watch out for.

            “…what do you want, Hidenaga?”

            “How about a truce?” Kensei asked.

            Doku fingered the catch on his bag. He was sure he could get out his Gamer Cepta and activate it before anybody could stop him. But Kensei wasn’t wearing his Driver, and the bag he must’ve been keeping it in was in a metal basket on the back of his bike, out of easy reach.

What if he actually meant what he said?

            “Where are we meeting to talk about this truce?” Doku asked simply.

            “Big Bang Burger?” Kensei suggested. “I’ll buy?”

            Doku raised a suspicious eyebrow. “You’ll buy? Did you just get your allowance or something?”

            Kensei smiled slightly and shook his head. “No, I got my first paycheck from Genm. I couldn’t go to Tokyo U on this or anything, but—”

            “Kensei, watch out!” Kiiko yelled suddenly. “He’s going to—”

            Doku scowled at her and she stopped. “No, I’m _not_ , whatever she thinks I was about to do. And keep your voice down, ah mou. All right, let’s pretend I’m interested in this offer of yours before you go and embarrass yourselves even more!”

 

XXX

 

            The three of them found a booth at the very back of the Big Bang Burger down the street from the school. Doku surprised them by ordering nothing but a carton of fries and sitting in the corner, then not even touching his food as he waited for them to explain what they wanted.

            But like it had been when they came up with the idea for this, it was Kensei who spoke first. “Remember last time, how there was a whole group of Corrupture? It looks like they’re kind of starting to get organized,” he explained. “I thought maybe it was time we stopped dancing around all this, and thought about getting organized too.”

            Doku picked at his fries, but didn’t pick anything up. “Did you ask Kasuga about this idea?” Kensei leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “No? And what made you ask me first?”

            “Your speech.”

            “My speech? The one about geeks being represented? You believed that?”

            Kensei shrugged and smiled a little. “Should I not believe it?”

            Doku gave him a neutral look for a minute, then just shrugged back. “Kind of surprised you even considered it.”

            “You’re not the only one,” Kiiko muttered and looked away. Kensei and Doku both looked over at her, then looked back at each other.

            “So you want to talk about teaming up, because you think from my speech that I’m a good guy underneath, or something?” Doku asked.

            Kensei picked up his burger to try and look like he belonged and took a bite out of it, grimacing at how many onions this restaurant put on its hamburgers before he swallowed it. For a second Doku smiled at the look of disgust on Kensei’s fac. No malice, no cold analysis of the situation.

“I’m thinking it,” Kensei replied. “You used to be angry all the time, and talking about how you were going to go so much farther than everyone else you knew. That hasn’t really happened since all this stuff about fighting the Corrupture started picking up. I’m hoping you’ll be willing to consider it.”

            As he said that Kensei looked over at Kiiko, hoping she’d jump in with something to back him up. But she only met his eyes for a second and then looked away nervously. Of course. She hadn’t thought this would work in the first place.

            As he looked back, Doku wasn’t smiling anymore but his face was neutral and he’d finally eaten some of his food. “You’ve given me something to think about,” he said. “But I don’t know if I want my message getting lost working with working with other guys, who’d have their own.”

            “Is that really more important than beating dangerous villains?” Kensei asked him.

            “Aren’t you turning out to be a perfect little hero?” Doku said, then sighed. “Look, I’ve played most of these games, I know what I’m doing. But I will think about what you asked.”

            Then he picked up his bag and walked out. Kensei didn’t stop him. He knew it wouldn’t have helped.

 

XXX

 

            The next morning was a quiet one. Doku avoided looking at Kensei or Kiiko, but he had his fingers folded in front of his face for most of it like he was thinking hard about something, and Kensei doubted it was class.

            But then Kensei wasn’t thinking much about class either. He kept imagining Yoshoku, and what he could possibly say to convince the other Kamen Rider that they should think about an alliance. He kept imagining Yoshoku laughing off the request and challenging him to a showdown.

On the one hand, he’d helped Yoshoku before when he gave him Scorching Kitchen. But, it’d seemed like Yoshoku considered them even after that. Then again they’d had a truce once already, hadn’t they? Couldn’t they have another one, possibly, if there was a good enough reason?

They just needed to find a good enough reason.

After ages of this, the class finally broke for lunch. As Kensei picked up his bag and started to head out, a lady he recognized as the school doctor came running up to him. “Hidenaga-san! We just got a call from your doctor! He wanted us to make sure you remember your appointment You have to leave for your appointment right away, don’t you?”

“Doctor…?” Kensei said, then realized his phone was throbbing in its pocket in his bag. He pulled it out a few inches and saw an incoming call, a familiar number and a familiar “Unknown” caller ID. “Right. My appointment. Thanks for reminding me.” Then he walked to the stairs as fast as he could.

 

XXX

 

Gunshots ripped through the air, fired from a pair of rust-spotted revolvers held in a pair of withered green hands. They were almost as piercing as their owner’s cry.

“Yeeeeeeee-HAW!”

He grabbed his battered cowboy hat and threw it high into the air at his joy. His joy at the chaos he was creating. Around him people screamed and ran away in every direction, but still he fired off his guns over and over anyway. In another minute the street was empty, but he strained his withered ears and could just barely hear the sound of a motorcycle’s engine getting louder.

To his surprise, it was Kamen Rider Rune, wearing a long white coat and top hat, riding down the empty street on a shiny white bike with roulette wheels for tires. As soon as he jumped down from his bike the Kamen Rider whipped a long cane out of his coat and pointed it straight at the Corrupture.

“You are in a lot of trouble, friend,” Rune said warningly.

“Ha! Well I ain’t just scared out of my little ol’ zombie mind! You must hear my spurs shakin’ all the way down there!”

He was a hairless zombie, his skin green and withered, wearing a long brown overcoat covered in holes over a plaid shirt, jeans and peeling cowboy boots. Rune recognized him: it was Rotting Gus, an enemy from a graveyard mission in Bang Bang Sunset. But Gus was hardly one of the game’s more challenging enemies. He’d be no problem for a Level 3 Rider.

Gus aimed his pistols at Rune, who only spun his cane in his fingers. The dice in the gem on the end clattered around for a second and the number 6 appeared above it.

The zombie cowboy fired both guns but Rune swung his cane and batted both bullets out of the air. 1, 2. Then he suddenly dashed across the distance between them and smacked Gus on both wrists, 3, 4, and knocked the zombie’s hands off with a small explosion. He jabbed Gus in the chest with his cane and another small blast pushed the zombie back a good ten feet, then covered the distance in one jump and hit Gus in the neck with his cane. 6.

            For a second Gus’s head spun through the air until it hit the ground. He looked up at Rune and moaned, “Now that ain’t fair!”

            “It’s not about being fair, it’s about beating the game,” Rune replied with a smirking tone to his voice. He glanced around, trying to see if someone was watching the fight. After all, he couldn’t get his message out if nobody reported on his victory. As a result he didn’t see Gus’s hands creeping up behind him on their fingers. One grabbed his leg and pulled him off-balance while the other blasted him in the back with its revolver.

            Kamen Rider Rune yelled and crashed into the ground. While he was down Gus’s hands crawled back over to his body and jumped back onto his wrists. He bent down and picked up his head then put it back on too. “Yeah, and looks like this game’s gonna beat you!” he drawled and took aim at Rune’s head with both guns. He pulled the triggers and his weapons roared.

            But nothing happened. There was no telltale explosion, no burst of intense pain from the shots. “Wut in taaaarnation?” Gus asked, rubbing the side of his head with the side of one pistol in confusion.

            The answer came in a glowing bullet that blew him off his booted feet. Standing there was Kamen Rider Sling in his Level 2 gunslinger form. “Not bad, if I say so myself,” he said, sounding smug.

            “Wait…you _shot_ his bullets?” Rune asked in disbelief.

            “Like I said, not bad, if I say so myself,” Sling replied and tweaked the brim of his hat, sounding even more smug.

            Then he blasted at Rotting Gus, the zombie dancing away as the bullets chewed up the ground around his boots. Sling changed targets and fired at Gus’s shoulder, knocking off his arm.

            “ **En EN ChamBARA!** ” They were interrupted again as the sound of a Gashat activating called out. Then Kamen Rider Utsura came charging into sight, wielding his bright green katana.

            “Seriously?! You brought a whole posse??” Rotting Gus complained.

            “I didn’t bring anyone,” Sling replied and blasted Gus’s foot off. It started hopping back to the zombie right away, who slumped against the side of a streetlight. “And I sure don’t need any help with a pathetic monster like you,” Sling added.

            He was lining up another shot when there was a loud CLICK. Rotting Gus’s severed arm had pointed its pistol at Rune’s head. Suddenly there was another click, even louder. The slot machine bar on Rune’s chest had started spinning. Eggplant. Eggplant. Eggplant. “Seriously?” Rune complained as a short burst of silver coins shot out and knocked Rotting Gus’s severed arm away.

The zombie’s foot reattached itself and he started running for his missing arm. Utsura jumped in the way, swinging his sword back and froth to drive Rotting Gus back away from it.

“ **Bang Bang Critical Finish!!** ” A massive spiraling bullet ripped from Sling’s Gamer Pamaka and shot a hole right through Rotting Gus’s torso.

“Well, shucks…” Gus said popped into a cloud of pixels, even his severed arm disintegrating and flying off into the sky with the rest of him.

“Pathetic,” Sling said as he holstered his gun and turned to Rune. “You should be glad nobody was around to see how easy that idiot zombie went down.”

            Rune said nothing for a minute. He picked up his cane and shook his head. “Kensei has something important to tell you, I think.”

            “Hmmm?” Sling asked, turning to face Utsura and sounding honestly surprised.

            “I…,” Utsura stammered, caught by surprised, then took a breath. But since when did Doku use his first name? “I…was talking to Doku about how maybe we should work together. The Corrupture are starting to come in groups, you know?”

            Sling looked away and shook his head. “You picked the worst time in the world to try and make _that_ point, Hidenaga. Maybe they are grouping up now. That just shows how dangerous _we_ are.”

            “And think about how _even more_ dangerous we’d be if helped each other.”

            “There’s a saying, Hidenaga. ‘Never waste a crisis.’ This is the chance to show who’s the better one after all.” Then he walked away from the others, summoned up his steampunk motorcycle and rode off down the street without another word.

            Suddenly Rune was on his bike too. “He’ll think a little harder about it when a monster kicks his ass.”

            “…and what about you?”

            “I’m still thinking,” Rune said. “Games are competitive.”

            “This isn’t a game,” Utsura said, clenching a fish.

            Rune looked him right in the giant eyes of his mask. “Isn’t it?” he asked. Then he rode away too.

 

XXX

 

            “Will you at least tell us _why_?” Kiiko asked in exasperation. She slumped onto the couch in the waiting room outside Kazumono’s lab. The Genm tech shrugged helplessly at her question.

            “Because the Corrupture are starting to get organized, right?” he replied. “That’s what Hidenaga told us about the last battle. If we could trust this to more experience hands, we would. But instead if we have a Kamen Rider wanting more power to fight them, what choice do we have?”

            Kiiko shook her head, unconvinced by the tech’s argument. “Why can’t you just make one really strong Gashat for the one Kamen Rider you know you can trust?”

            He closed his eyes and rubbed his brow in exasperation. “Mishiranu-san, we’re basically starting from scratch with our research on Rider Gashats, I’ve explained that to you. We’re working as fast as we possibly can, and we can’t afford to put all our faith in one person. THAT’s why we agreed to give Doku Dasao the Level 3 Gashat we made for him.”

            “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone else,” said someone with a sigh as he came into the lab and dropped his bag on the floor near Kiiko’s head. He patted on her shoulder and she made a vaguely-pleased sounding noise. “Thanks for coming and trying to round up some support for me, Kiiko, but we really need to come up with something to convince the other guys to stop trying to handle this themselves.”

            “And that wouldn’t be as hard if _some_ people weren’t giving away power-ups to anyone who asked,” Kiiko said pointedly.

            Kensei put his hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know if only giving them things if they do what we say is the best to get them to trust us.”

            She gave _him_ a pointed look. “Isn’t that how jobs work? You’re talking crazy, Kensei-kun.”

            “I don’t know, Kiiko,” he replied and looked over at Kazumono, “Not that I’m not grateful for being paid for this, but we’re trying to save the world, right? Isn’t _that_ the important thing? My paycheck isn’t going to do me a lot of good if the Corrupture turn the world into some kind of video game nightmare.”

            “It might not be,” Kiiko lightly retorted. “Lots of video games have money systems.”

            Kensei looked back at her, his brow knitted in disbelief, but he couldn’t help chuckling a little at her absurd suggestion anyway. “Let’s try _not_ to find out, okay? I bet video games wouldn’t be as fun if monsters really were running around everywhere.”

            “Exactly my point!” Kazumono said, sounding a little exasperated. “Would you honestly want to _live_ in a video game?? I don’t! That’s why we gave Dasao his next Gashat when he came and asked for it: to make sure the world isn’t turned in a horrible, _glitch_ video game!”

            Kiiko arched an eyebrow, like she probably didn’t quite believe it. Well, maybe she didn’t. After all, Doku and Yoshoku were really getting into the possibilities of a video game in real life…

            “We’ll figure it out somehow, but keep up the research on stronger games, okay?” Kensei asked the technician.

            That question finally made Kazumono’s expression brighten a little. “We’re getting close to a major breakthrough. The Mighty Hand’s almost ready,” he said, and called up a picture on his tablet. It showed a white gauntlet made of some kind of hard plastic, with a picture of the game character Mightly near the back giving a thumbs up. Two rows of small grey buttons ran up the back of it to stop in front of a pair of two larger, a pink one stamped A and a green one stamped B.

            “What’s it do?”

            The tech smirked. “I’ll tell you all about it as soon as the testing’s finished…sorry to keep you in the dark, but we’re really proud of this one.”

            Kensei nodded. He was sure Genm had every right to be proud of their new gadget. But at the same time he wished their research was going faster. The Kamen Riders seemed so vulnerable having to depend on trinkets for all their powers. How much trouble would they be in waiting on Kazumono’s people to rediscover all that had already been learned?

            He had a feeling it wouldn’t be long until he got his answer.

 

XXX

 

            After they left the Genm building, Kiiko went off on her own, somewhat to Kensei’s surprise.

            “I need to get home,” she said quickly.

            “Where is that? Maybe you can show me off to _your_ folks,” he tried to suggest with a smile.

            “They’re out of town,” she said even more quickly than before and hurried away.

            He watched her go until she turned a corner and disappeared down another street. Well, maybe his night would go a little easier. He still had another night with his mother and the celebrations of his heroics were getting a little tiring. It’d be easier to survive with just his mother around reminding him.

            But as he stared back home, it was obvious he had worse things to worry about than his mother fawning over him. There was a fireball at the top of a building and the corner of it had disappeared.

            It was time to go.

 

XXX

 

            Another beam lanced out from the mouth of the snake-like staff, held in a fleshless hand. It spewed out in rapid fire and blew up a row of cars in a string of billowing fireballs.

            “Still got my touch,” grinned the staff’s owner, a demon with a strangely tall skull for a head, tiny blue gems in his eye sockets. He had on a long blue trenchcoat and a battered top hat, the top torn and almost flopping free of the rest.

            A yawn reached his ears. He turned to face a woman with blue skin, wearing a clinging purple catsuit and a golden helmet with the head of a spider carve into the front with its eyes over hers and the legs over the sides of her head. She was draped over the hood of a car that hadn’t exploded, and she looked totally bored with his display. “They’re taking a lot longer to show up than when they fought Gus,” she said. “Maybe you’re not as dangerous as he was.”

            Somehow the skull-headed man narrowed his eyebrows angrily at her. “Don’t test me, Mirage. Are you a part of this cause or aren’t you?” he demanded.

            She gazed at him without saying anything for a minute then jumped down and said in a half-mocking voice, “Of course, great Master Terror! Your vision is the one that will unite the new world into a place of freedom and ultimate chaos!”

            Master Terror ground his teeth angrily, but looked up at the roar of a motorcycle. It was Kamen Rider Sling, his steampunk motorcycle belching flames from its numerous exhaust pipes. Only a second later Kamen Rider Rune came riding from the other direction, wearing the coat and top hat of his Level 3 form. He jumped off his bike and whipped out his cane, then landed in a crouch and came up with his free hand on the brim of his hat.

            Mirage looked back at Master Terror. “I think this is what’s acalled a ‘mirror match’,” she smirked.

            “Don’t give away the plan,” the skeletal villain growled under his breath.

            She smirked. “Never.”

            “Two this time?” Rune said. “Maybe he was right.”

            Sling jumped down and gripped his gun but didn’t draw it. “Why _are_ you working together now? Are you that scared of us?” he called over to the two Corrupture.

            Master Terror laughed. “Working together _now_? We’ve always been united in our goal: to spread over the world and make a home for our kind! It only so happens that we’re spawning faster now and seeking each other out!” He swung his staff and a burst of venomous green beams that the Kamen Riders moved quickly to dodge.

Rune jumped over them, hid the ground with a somersault and Sling dashed, hit the ground and slid under. As he came up into a crouch he smoothly drew his Gamer Pamaka and fired a strafing burst of his own that Master Terror batted away with his staff.

“Is that the best the mighty Kamen Riders can do?” he sneered with no lips.

“Buddy, I haven’t even gotten started!” Sling said. Rune swung his Gamer Septa and the dice on the end started rattling around almost sounding like a warning.

“Neither have we,” Master Terror grinned, and even Mirage did despite mocking him before. A crystal ball formed in her hand and she threw it high into the air where it exploded into a dazzle of yellow and blue fireworks.

Immediately there was a deep yell, sounding like an angry animal, from behind them. In just a second there was another, but higher and followed by a snort. Three monsters charged up behind the Kamen Riders: the first one a hulking figure with shoulders nearly as wide as he was tall and the head of a rhinoceros with a long sword-like horn on his nose. In place of his right hand was a huge block of metal.

A spiked ball came bouncing up to beside the rhinoceros-monster then unfolded into a hunched figure with a mask and jester’s hat over his gaunt, grey face. There were teeth on the underside of each of his long spindly fingers.

The other one was shorter, coming up to about one of the Riders’ waist. He had a face like a pig, crossed with visible blue veins, long fangs on his lower jaw and strong but flabby arms along with hooves instead of feet.

“Kamen Riders, may I introduce Crush, Crumble, and Chomp. Your entertainment for the evening!” Master Terror laughed, and his three minions closed in.

 

**See you Next Game**

 


	11. Formation of Guild!

            In front of them were three Corrupture ready for a fight. Crumble snapped his tooth-encrusted fingers together and giggled like a maniac. Crush laughed a deep, gloating laugh as he lurched closer and the metal block on his arm smashed a hole in the asphalt. Chomp licked his flabby lips, his stomach growling in an almost menacing way.

            Behind them, Master Terror lifted his snake-headed staff and a poisonous-looking green light started glowing between its fangs. Mirage held one hand upward and a crystal ball with a dancing stream of light that ricocheted back and forth off the sides.

            Kamen Rider Sling tightened his grip on the butt of his Gamer Pamaka. Then he suddenly whipped around and fired a quick burst at Master Terror’s staff. The skeletal villain yelped in surprise and fired back with the energy he’d gathered in his staff, causing a terrific burst of energy as the two shots hit each other.

            Before the glare had cleared Sling was charging Mirage. She threw the crystal ball in her hand at him but he showed he wasn’t only fast on the back of a motorcycle, and darted around the explosion of light and gas as the crystal ball exploded. Sling jumped and immediately went into a spinning kick that knocked Mirage aside.

            Impossibly, she twisted herself around in midair so she was right-side up and landed on all fours. “Not bad, Rider. I hope for your sake it wasn’t your best!” she sneered over at him.

            “Are you kidding?” Sling asked. “I haven’t even gotten started. Literally.”

            Mirage formed crystal balls in both hands, and Master Terror charged another shot. “You would take us both on, Rider?” Master Terror asked. “Us, masters of the new world?”

            “Saying it doesn’t make it so,” Sling said. “You want to be it, you’ve got to be able to fight for it.” Then he whipped around and fired at Master Terror.

           

XXX

 

            A charge ran up Rune’s cane and gathered in the gem at the top. The pair of dice bounced furiously off the sides until they finally landed: 4 and 5, 9 explosive charges for him.

            Three small explosions erupted as Rune drummed his cane against Crush’s metal fist, just barely deflecting it before Rune was flattened. He still had six bursts left, but he had an awful feeling they were going to get used up fast against the enormous Corrupture.

            Chomp charged up suddenly, his huge mouth open wide and spraying thick wads of saliva all over the ground as he aimed his gaping maw at Rune’s leg. The Kamen Rider swung his cane and spent a valuable burst of power that knocked the pig-Corrupture flying crazily into the air.

            A roar behind him took Rune’s attention off the sight, and the Kamen Rider made a desperate jab with his cane and another small explosion hit Crush right on the chin. The rhino-monster rocked back on his feet for a second, then growled and swung that wrecking ball-like fist of his at Rune’s head.

            Rune leaned back so hard to avoid it he fell flat on his back. Then the next thing he knew a spiked ball bounced by, then as it came down it was clear that it, Crumble, was aiming to come down right on top of Rune’s ribcage. Rune held up his cane, and a burst of power sent it bouncing up into the air. 4. Then it came straight back down, Rune gasped in surprise and he held up his cane again and another burst, 3, and again the spiked ball went straight up and started coming straight back down, a maniacal giggle filling the air.

            The time Rune swatted Crumble with his cane and another blast of power, but this time he swatted the spiked ball away, in Crush’s direction. The rhino-faced Corrupture let out an angry yell as his own teammate crashed into him and knocked him back into the side of a building.

            Rune jumped back up. Chomp growled as he came running up behind Rune, jumping and trying to close his jaws around Rune’s neck. The Rider swung his cane and with its last blast he knocked the pig creature flying again.

            How long could he keep this up against three enemies? Rune had been able to knock them around but didn’t seem like he’d done any actual damage. As Crush got up and Crumble unrolled himself, Rune raised his cane and sent the slot machine wheels on his body spinning.

            For a second the Corrupture stopped where they were, unsure what to expect from Rune’s unusual casino powers. Cherry…cherry…cherry locked in a row across his chest. A slot opened underneath the wheels and huge cherries whirled out like bolos at the pair of monsters. Crush swung his metal fist and bashed the cherries into jelly, and Crumble grabbed onto two more with his teeth-covered hands then tossed them over his shoulder.

            And by the time they could focus on Kamen Rider Rune again he’d had time to come up with a more concentrated attack. A storm of playing cards blasted the two Corrupture. Five grew bigger and slammed into Crush’s chest. 4 of Clubs, 8 of Spades, 8 of Hearts, 3 of Clubs, 2 of Diamonds. Another five slammed into Crumble, King of Hearts, Jack of Clubs, 2 of Spades, 4 of Diamonds, 6 of Clubs.

            “What kind of hand is that??” Rune yelled, then gasped in fear and dodged as Crush charged through his attack, the cards too weak to hurt such a strong monster. He ducked to the side just in time and pieces of concrete shot up from where Crush’s fist hit the ground but while he was distracted Crumble bounced over and slammed into Rune’s back. He was knocked into the side of a car and a third of his health bar immediately disappeared.

            “Are you kidding me?” Rune groaned. “My powers depend on luck like this??” He spotted the energy bar on his Gamer Septa, running low. Was that why he’d had such a miserable attack? Did he use up its stored energy even faster in a Level 3 form?

            Rune quickly opened up his inventory to use his last precious mana-restoring coin. Crush was down on all fours and looking ready to charge, Crumble had rolled himself up again and Chomp had recovered again and was limping over to try to take a bite out of Rune again.

            Then someone else was standing in front of Rune, in a very familiar yellow and black undersuit and plates of red samurai armor on top, wielding a pair of swords with green plastic-looking blades.

            Crumble unrolled, and the hunched jester danced back and forth, clicking his fingers and the sharp teeth on them together. “Came to die with your friend, Rider?” Crumble jeered in a high but rough-sounding voice.

            “Not yet,” Utsura replied. Suddenly Crumble lunged at him, trying to sink his fanged fingers into Utsura, but the Rider twisted and they chewed off a piece off the armor over his hip instead. Utsura’s sword was a bright green blur as it lashed out and hit Crumble on the elbows, making the crazed jester jump back with a yelp of pain before he could be hit again.

            Rune tapped Utsura’s side with his cane. “What are you doing? Trying to get a favor from _me,_ now?”

            “No, I came to see if you’d really been thinking about the question I asked,” Utsura replied, and jerked his head to one side. Rune looked where he was indicating, and saw Sling dodging another exploding crystal ball from Mirage. A weird powdery kind of light went up and settled on the ground, and as soon as it had the ground turned a flat neon blue and started to spread outward in a wave with blocky, pixel-like edges.

            And that wasn’t the only one, there were spreading spots of color all over the street from Mirage’s other shots. As Rune watched the edges of two of them touched and a hole immediately formed, and out of it crawled a spider as big as a person, and with a human head that had sunken skin and slicked-back black hair. He had on a black vest that looked like part of a butler’s uniform.

Behind them two more touched then caved in to form a hole, and another giant spider crawled out, this one female and wearing a white lace apron and maid’s headpiece. Another hole formed and yet another pair of hairy arachnid legs started to crawl out.

“We’ve got to get out of here or we’ll be overwhelmed!” Utsura said. Crush swung his fist at the Rider who held his swords in a scissors-shape and blocked the powerful swing but was pushed a couple feet across the ground anyway.

“We’re supposed to stay and fight when there’s a danger!” Rune retorted. His fingers reached out for the coin in his inventory that would restore his energy, but all of a sudden another armored hand clamped down _hard_ on his wrist.

The eyes in Rune’s mask actually flashed red with rage and he tried to yank himself out of Utsura’s group, but the samurai Rider pointed past them with a jerk of his hand. A store turned neon red, then its windows opened exposing demonic yellow eyes staring back at the two of them. Then the front door that was its mouth split open, up and below, and more of the giant spiders with human heads scuttled out.

More holes were opening in the sides of taller buildings as they turned into crazy patchworks of color too, and more spiders crawled out of them. The monsters rushed between the Riders and Master Terror and Mirage, forming a horrible swaying black wall of bodies.

“We’re gonna get overwhelmed if we stay here,” Utsura hissed. “We need a plan!”

Rune looked down at the almost empty energy bar on his wand, and then the icon showing the last of the rare magic coins he’d managed to find and save.

“Okay, fine,” Rune sighed. “A plan. Are we taking him with us?”

Utsura nodded, then turned and saw what had happened to Sling.

 

XXX

 

A crackling shot from Master Terror’s snake-headed staff shot out, glowing a poisonous kind of green. There was a sound of sizzling as Kamen Rider Sling went diving to his right as he returned fire. The skeletal villain expected Sling to shoot down the bullet, but instead his bullet hit Master Terror’s staff and sent it spinning out of his skinless hands.

Incredibly Master Terror held out his hand and a chain of bones stretched out of the sleeve of his coat and caught his staff then recoiled. He blasted at Kamen Rider Sling again, catching the cowboy across his side and making Sling gasp in pain. He somersaulted out of the way of Terror’s next shot, whipping out Scorching Kitchen as he did.

“Cooking?” the villain said with a sneer. “That’s your great power?”

“Let me show you how many things bone powder goes into,” Sling retorted and stabbed the trigger button.

The very same second a crystal ball landed in front of his feet and his vision turned totally white and there was a deafening noise. As he hit the ground the breath in his lungs was squeezed out by the impact as he landed, but his fingers stayed wrapped tight around Scorching Kitchen.

Colored spots filled his vision as it started to clear up, and his fingers trembled as he moved to load Scorching Kitchen into his gun. The sharp black tip of a spider’s leg, stabbed into the hand holding his Gashat. He yelled so loud in pain his vision burred.

Then suddenly the spider’s leg pinning him down dissolved into a stream of pixels as Utsura slashed through spider it was attached to. Mirage charged a crystal ball and lobbed it the Kamen Riders and Utsura hit the button on his Gashat and switched to archery mode. In a second he pulled back on his bow and shot down the crystal ball, spraying the ground with a cone of bright green pixels.

Sling managed to sit up and saw Crush charging up, Crumble bouncing closer and Chomp waddling his way over while licking his flabby lips. Rune was in front of them and power flashed from his wand, forming a transparent wall between the Riders and their enemies. Crush smashed his fist into it and a spiderweb of cracks formed in it though.

Another shot from Master Terror’s staff, and Utsura switched to his dual wakizashi and crossed them like an X, just in time to block the beam. Utsura struggled to push back against it for a second and finally swatted the beam away but one of his swords was shattered in the process. “Kasuga, we have to get out of here and make a plan,” he gasped.

A chunk of Rune’s shield landed between them as Crush and Crumble crashed into it again. “Fine! Whatever!” Sling yelled. Utsura nodded. He pulled out Mighty Sketch and hit the trigger button just once, making the Sketch Gamer robot appear and fire a blast of paint high into the sky.

It came down like rain, splattering all over the street, the buildings, and the gang of Corrupture. By the time it stopped there was no sign of the Kamen Riders.

 

XXX

 

The power gauge on his Gamer Septa, almost drained, was the last thing Rune saw before he unplugged his Gashats and his armor faded.

“So…we just ran away?” Doku looked up at the others and asked.

“I’m wondering about that too,” Kiiko said, giving Kensei a very sharp look. “You’re the heroes, you shouldn’t be running away.”

Kensei slumped against the wall of the alley and sighed in exasperation. “What were we supposed to do? There was the beginning of a whole army back there between the Corrupture and their spider-friends. If we tried to keep fighting it out, they would’ve got us sooner or later.”

“Not if you would’ve let me recharge my power back there,” Doku cut in, glaring at Kensei, who just gave him a tired look back before he looked away again.

Yoshoku cleared his throat, and looked to be ignoring the growing cut on one side of his forehead. “Were you trying to talk to us into teaming up because you knew something like this would happen, Hidenaga? Did Genm tell you about this?”

“No, I just noticed how it seemed like more were showing up. Remember when that cowgirl teamed up with Graphite?” Kensei replied. “That was the first time, but it’s been happening. And do you need any proof besides what happened just now?”

Yoshoku shrugged and sighed. “All right, so maybe I could use someone to even the odds a little when they show up with an army. You have a plan for how we go back there and get the edge on them before they overrun the whole city?” he asked, looking up as a huge 8-bit spiderweb finished spinning itself in the sky.

“Of course he has a plan,” Kiiko immediately replied, then looked over at Kensei expectantly.

He nodded slowly. “Well, maybe if we use the Gamers to hold off the spiders while we took care of the big monsters ourselves—”

“You expect us to fight them at Level 2??” Yoshoku demanded.

“Are any of you listening??” Doku demanded. “If you’d let me recharge my energy, I could’ve hit the big monster again and then we probably could’ve turned that fight around! How am I supposed to look strong when I run away from fights?!?”

Everything was silent in the alley for a second, but unsurprisingly Yoshoku was the one who broke it. He narrowed his eyes in annoyance and tilted his head. “What the _hell_ are you talking about, Dasao? Look strong? Is that all you care about, _looking_ strong??”

“Hey, I’m trying to represent people like me!” Doku fired back. “If I look like a pussy who got scared and ran away from a fight, how am I suppose do to that?! At least I’ve got a reason for it, besides just showing off like you!”

Yoshoku seemed to grow and grow until he filled the sky, and for just a second Doku flinched. “Is that what you think I do?” Yoshoku asked, his voice full of quiet menace. “ _Show off_?”

Kiiko looked back at them then over at Kensei again. “We’re going back while they’re distracted, right?” she whispered behind her hand.

But he didn’t answer her. Instead he looked past her, to where a girl maybe about eight years old was looking back and forth frantically then cupped her hands around her mouth. “Mama! Papa! Where are you???” She waited a second, then when she got no answer she buried her face in her hands.

“Hold that thought, okay?” Kensei answered and walked around Kiiko. “Hey?” he said to the little girl, who jumped back in surprise before she recognized he was another human and, presumably, not a Corrupture. “Are you okay? Did something happen to your parents?”

She looked him up and down, her tear-streaked eyes wide and untrusting. Then Kensei took out his Gamer Driver and fastened it around his waist. “Mister…are you a Kamen Rider?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, trying to give a reassuring smile.

 

XXX

 

            “Say that again, Dasao,” Yoshoku scowled. “Tell me what you think I do in a fight.”

            But Doku had regained his composure and was scowling right back by then. “Well, if I’m so wrong, I couldn’t tell you, could I? Why don’t _you_ tell _me_?”

            Yoshoku clenched a fist, but then shook his head and sighed. “I’m trying to prove I can do something better than my stupid brother. Maybe you heard of him, Shintaro Wadari?”

            “…yeah, I heard about him. Who hasn’t? He’s the most popular kid in school…but I didn’t know he was your brother,” Doku said, more quietly and a little bit surprised.

            “Half-brother,” Yoshoku said. “That’s why most people don’t know, we have different names.”

            Doku scratched his head. “…mind if I ask why?” he did indeed ask.

            For a minute, Yoshoku didn’t answer or look at him. Then he started to explain, “My father…I don’t know if my mother really loved him. They knew each other since they were kids, and dad got rich but he never met another woman he could stand for long, so he kept trying to get her to marry him, and I kind of guess she agreed because she felt sorry for him in his big house and with all his money but nobody there to help him enjoy it.

            “That’s why I can’t stand either of them. Mom gave him everything he asked for, even though she was on the police force and was giving so much of herself already. Then he paid that all back by having a son with his mistress, and _then_ he gave Shintaro everything. Help with sports, help with grades, a guaranteed future…

“The day mom died playing Kamen Rider Chronicle, he got angry about how she could’ve done that to him. After everything _he_ did to her. I don’t know where we would’ve been without my dad, but I _know_ we would’ve been happier.”

            Neither of them said anything for a minute. Doku spoke first, “How did she die?”

            “Nobody really knows…it was total chaos back then,” Yoshoku said with a shrug. “But that was her name on the box with my Kamen Rider stuff…that must mean she wants _me_ to deal with all this, and not my hotshot brother.”

Again silence came down over the alley, and Doku scratched his head slowly. He walked away, closer to where Kensei was standing just by the entrance to the street, but Kiiko gave him a pointed look and Doku went back the other way. “You know, this probably sounds stupid,” he murmured, “but I never really thought about someone like you having…issues. With your family, and other crap.”

Hearing that made Yoshoku laugh, and for a second Doku’s blood started to boil with anger. But he realized it was a soft, tired kind of laugh, not the loud jeer he was so used to hearing from the athletic and popular kids. Ones like Yoshoku. “Because you have so many, you thought you were the only person who had personal problems, huh? Popular people are still people.”

To his surprise, Doku found himself laughing lightly too, and Yoshoku only leaned back against the wall and folded his arms with a light smile. Then he asked, “So, who sent you your Rider stuff?”

“Well…my big sister did,” Doku admitted.

“What happened to her?” Yoshoku asked plainly, his face completely impassive, just waiting silently for an answer.

Doku could only shrug and sigh at that, at first. He thought for a second about the best way to explain it, to describe how warm, and brave and selfless his sister had always been.

Then suddenly a flicker of light caught his eye then from the other end of the alley. He saw it again, and froze. There, just disappearing around behind a corner was a cloud of silvery pixels, and in them he was sure he saw a face.

A familiar face.

“Onee-san…?”

 

XXX

 

“Mister, are you Ex-Aid?”

Kensei shook his head a little and smiled. “No, I’m Utsura,” he explained to the little girl. “I know I’m not as cool as Ex-Aid and Snipe, but I’m trying to fill in for them the best I can until they get back.”

She moved a little closer on the cement stoop where they were sitting, looking at the label on En En Chambara in his hand, with the demonic samurai on its label, shivered and looked away. “Snipe isn’t cool, he’s scary,” she said.

“As scary as _this guy_?” Kensei teased, holding up the Gashat which made the girl squeal and look away. “Sorry, you’re really freaked out. I shouldn’t be messing around like that. Look, I’m Kensei, what’s your name?”

She gave him a disbelieving look. “Kensei? Seriously? Are you good at sword-fighting?”

“Actually I _do_ practice kendo, yeah,” he laughed a little. “That’s not the reason why, though. It’s kind of paying off now since I fight monsters with swords, though.”

She exhaled and looked away from him, but she was smiling a little all the same. “My name’s Suzu,” she said.

“And I’m Kiiko!” she cheerfully announced as she joined them, then looked over to face Kensei. “Doing some PR? Good idea!”

“I’m…just trying to help calm down a scared girl,” Kensei shrugged, a little mystified by Kiiko’s question.

“Mister?” Suzu asked, and both of them looked over at her. “If you’re replacing Ex-Aid, does that mean you know him?”

He shook his head, trying his best to look apologetic. “No, I never meet him. I mean, the reason they needed me to replace him and the other Kamen Riders is because he just disappeared suddenly. I hope soon we can find out where he went soon, though.”

Suddenly Kiiko laughed. “We’ll solve that mystery in no time! And we won’t need _their_ help!” she said, jerking her head backwards to indicate Doku and Yoshoku. But Kensei glanced back, and only Yoshoku was still there.

“Hey! Where did Doku go?” he called.

“That way!” Yoshoku pointed and started running away down the alley.

The first instinct Kensei felt was to go after them, especially when the other Kamen Riders were just having a civil conversation. But he looked back at Kiiko and Suzu, Kiiko putting her hands on the girl’s shoulders.

“I just scanned the area, I spotted her parents. I’ll take her to them while you go make sure those two don’t do something stupid,” Kiiko offered.  
            “You can do that?” Kensei asked, unsure of himself, but realized what he was saying. Kiiko had weird powers that let her find Rider Gashats, and find Corrupture too. She probably could find people with them too, right? “Someday you’re going to tell me how you can do all this, Kiiko.”

She locked eyes with him, her mouth dropping open a bit and a kind of uncertain wavering in her eyes Kensei didn’t think he’d seen before. “Someday,” Kiiko said slowly. “But right now you need to go be a big hero again.”

He nodded. Then he ran after the others.

 

XXX

 

The streets seemed to get tighter and tighter as Doku chased after the strange pixel cloud that he knew had his sister’s face in it. Finally they back out onto a main road, and he could see those weird servant-spider people climbing over the tops of buildings. A karakasa hopped by on its one leg and stared over at Doku, but hopped away even faster as Doku gave it an ugly look. The infection the Corrupture had created was spreading, but all he cared about was the face in the cloud.

And as he watched it shifted and flowed outward into a human shape, even if it was still made of shifting, flickering pixels. He stared into it, and the face of his older sister stared back, then smiled with tired relief.

“Doku-chan,” she said and reached out with a hand that passed right through his face. She stared for a second then her faced formed into a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry, I guess I’m still getting used to this.”

“Hiromi. What…what happened to you? Are you all right? Where are you?? Where’s everyone???” Doku started to babble, tears pooling in his eyes.

“That’s kind of a hard question to answer, Doku-chan,” she said sadly. “All the people are there. The ones who died in Kamen Rider Chronicle, that’s what it’s called, right? I don’t really know where we are, but we’re trapped…”

“You’re not trapped! You’re here!” Doku almost yelled. “That means there must be a way out!”

She sighed. “I wish it was that simple,” she said.

“There has to be a way,” Doku pleaded with her.

Then suddenly, the sound of a gun going off cut through the air. And not just any gun, the burning whoosh only the energy from Kamen Rider Sling’s gun made. An energy bullet flew out of the darkness and into Hiromi Dasao’s side, blowing the ghost to the ground.

Furiously Doku whirled to face where the host had come from, his Gamer Septa already in one hand and Taddle Craft in the other. “I should’ve known it was just to get my guard down!” he screamed at Sling, his Gamer Pamaka smoking.

“Yeah, you should’ve. She was playing you from the beginning.”

“…what?” Doku croaked, then turned to his sister, and saw she had formed the fingers on one hand into foot-long claws. “Oh my god! You’re not my sister!” he yelled. He was right: a second later the cloud of pixels that had seemed to be Hiromi Dasao solidified into Mirage. “She can change shape?!”

The Corrupture villain jumped impossibly high then stuck to the side of a building. “And it almost worked,” she said. “You humans are so easy to lead when someone shows you something you want to see.”

“Yeah, I guess we are sometimes,” Doku admitted, then looked over at Sling. “Good thing I had somebody watching my back this time.”

“It was a valiant attempt, my lady,” Master Terror said as he melted out of the shadows and immediately started charging his snake staff. “But we can still finish them now, while the wizard’s weak.”

 From behind and on top of buildings, more of the maid and butler-headed spiders crawled out, coating the sides until there must’ve been at least 40.

Living up to his name, Crumble chewed a door in a cement wall with his fanged hands. Crush jumped down from the top of a convenience store onto a car, reducing it to jagged metal. Chomp reached out with his huge pig-like mouth, grabbed the back end of a butler-spider and swallowed the horrified arachnid in one gulp, then let out a huge gassy burp that rattled windows up and down the street. It almost made the Riders pass out from the smell.

“Hurry up and change already, stupid!” Sling snarled.

But Doku checked the power gauge on the Gamer Septa: only about 40%. It hadn’t been long enough since the last fight for it to finish charging yet. Crumble’s insane cackling as he closed in was all the pressure Doku needed to get ready for the next fight anyway. “Henshin!”

The purple cloak dropped over his shoulders, the mystical symbols all over it shining for a second as he pulled up the hood. The five Corrupture villains closed in, the waves of spiders crawling down the buildings to reinforce them.

Sling and Rune took a step back closer to the alley they’d come out of, only for a parade of spider-people to crawl out from that too and block them. The gun in Sling’s hand roared as he fired at the closest spiders. The spiders on both sides of the one he’d shot shook in pain then popped too.

“Is that really it? You’ve given up, haven’t you?” Master Terror sneered. He fired a blast from his staff at Sling and Rune.

Then at that second the loud pops marking the death of even more spiders behind him threw off Master Terror’s shot. The green bolt shot up into the sky as a glowing white arrow ripped through the crawling army, a whole line of spiders bursting before Utsura charged through the spiders from behind swinging his sword.

“Maybe we were just trying to get you to think we were scared,” Sling said as he strafed the closest spiders. “You monsters are so easy to lead when someone shows you something you want to see.”

Mirage scowled. “You’re still outnumbered a hundred to one, Rider!” she yelled, growling to hear her words turned back on her. The waves of spiders closed in around them.

Sling didn’t flinch. “So let’s do something about that.” He whipped out Scorching Kitchen, and Rune echoed his action by drawing Gamble Paradise. Both hit the trigger button and the short stubby Gamer robots floated out of screens with the titles of their games, then flew in circles over the top of the street. Suddenly another Gamer robot, a dark orange one, joined them. Flaps opened in their arms and the robots started bombing the giant spiders with a rain of large paint balls, dice and root vegetables that exploded as they hit the huge, screaming arachnids. A few spiders took a few shots at once and burst.

While the Gamers circled overhead, bombing from the air to keep the spiders back, a figure in thick red armor, holding a bright green katana in his hands. “Was wondering when you’d finally catch up, Hidenaga!” Sling called over his shoulder as he strafed the ground in front of him, stopping Crumble and Chomp as the hideous jester and his pig-faced friend closed in. “Your plan worked pretty well, though…”

“Holy crap, that was almost a compliment!” Utsura laughed. He turned his attention to the Corrupture right behind him, Master Terror and Mirage themselves. The skeletal leader was charging a brighter shot in his snake staff than any the Kamen Riders had seen before.

But Utsura dashed over and hit the staff with his katana so it pointed straight up. The staff fired and its shot went into the sky, setting a giant 8-bit moth on fire as it passed by. Before the Corrupture had a chance to recover he was charging at them, sword swinging wildly to keep them from counterattacking. One slash caught Master Terror across the chest and he hit the ground with a sound like a bunch of dry sticks clattering together.

            He turned back to face Mirage who’d tossed one of her exploding crystal balls at him. Utsura spun around and went into a jump kick that knocked her attack spinning out of sight.

            “The three of you really think you can take us on without using all your power?” Mirage sneered, warming up another exploding crystal as she did.

            “You know what the best way to be good at something? It’s to be good at it, not to smash your way through it,” Utsura replied, his voice hard and unfraid.

She suddenly flipped around the air and hurled her shot at him, and already Utsura tucked his sword against his chest and threw himself forward into a somersault. The explosion singed the back of his armor but he was unhurt.

Mirage scowled as she hit the ground and Master Terror got back up. “This is a game for _your life_ , Rider!” Mirage said with a scowl.

He only raised his sword, a ray of light seeming to run up the blade and flash at the tip. “Let’s play,” he retorted, then charged.

 

XXX

 

The press of the last button in the combo clicked in and Sling pulled the trigger, sending a fiery blast into Crush’s chest. He jerked back as the powerful bullet connected, a look of surprise on his wrinkly grey face. The horn on his nose dug a few inches into the side of the building behind him and Crush yelled and flailed as he tried to pull himself out.

But despite the dramatic display Crush was making, the smoking spot was already clearing and there was barely a mark. He’d taken Sling’s most powerful hit and all that’d happened was Crush was stuck to a building for a minute.

In his other hand, Sling held tight onto Scorching Kitchen. The Gamers circling from the air were the only thing keeping the Corrupture from getting an army of reinforcements, but already Sling was aching to be able to fight at full power.

And to show that idiot Master Terror just how sharp his Level 3 form’s knife really was…

He glanced over one shoulder and saw Rune kick Chomp away, the pudgy pig-monster spinning and landing on his head with a splat, but immediately getting up again. Rune used his wand like a weapon and swung it at Crumble’s head. The evil jester staggered and Rune looked desperately down at the power gauge on his wand, then cursed.

It was all the distraction Chomp needed. He reared back his huge head, then sneezed right into Rune’s back. A massive blast of snot hit Rune right between the shoulders and knocked him into Crumble’s waiting hands. The jester grinned with a mouth full of teeth as sharp as the ones on his fingers.

As sharp as the ones that grabbed on Rune, and started chewing into his armor.

There was a scream at that second. A combination of Rune’s scream of pain and Crush’s scream of rage as he pulled his nose free.

The hulking rhino-faced Corrupture came charging right at Sling, the ground shaking with his every gigantic step. Sling fired a ball of biting snakes from his gun that coiled all over Crush’s body and sank their fangs into him, but Crush didn’t even notice and swung his metal fist with all this terrifying strength.

The air actually _cracked_ with noise as Sling threw himself forward and under Crush’s wild swing at him. Sling drew and fired his gun, but just like he’d expected his bullets hit Crush and did nothing, the giant brute turning around and charging again.

It was hopeless. Sling dodged, ducked and ran back as Crush came after him. Every time his fist came a little closer to hitting him. Eventually, it had to. And he went flying, his chest burning with agony. Crumble let go of Rune and let Sling crash into him. They both went down in a tangle of armored bodies.

“Why the hell didn’t you fight back with magic??” Sling demanded as he tried to get out from underneath Rune. Chomp sneezed and coated their armor with green sludge, and all three Corrupture laughed.

            Rune groaned and threw a slick glob off his shoulder. The Corrupture laughed and Sling growled in irritation with him. “I don’t have enough energy to beat so many monsters…it hasn’t been long enough for it to finish recharging. And Hidenaga doesn’t seem to want me to use the last item I have to refill it.”

            A second passed. Then Sling whispered, “Do _they_ know that?”

            The huge block on Crush’s arm came down, smashing a square hole in the street. He lifted it again to flatten the Kamen Riders.

            Suddenly Rune pointed his wand at Crush and a cone of light flowed out of the end. The Corrupture’s killer swing slowed down and the two Kamen Riders scattered out of the way.

            Crumble curled up into his spiked ball form and came bouncing at Rune next, and the Rider twisted the dial on the side of the wand and sent a small tornado that blew Crumble backward.

            He twisted the dial and aimed it again, but nothing happened. Desperately he shook the wand and aimed it again, but still nothing happened as Crumble hopped closer to finish him off. His next bounce landed only a few feet away. The next one would smash him into Rune.

            But in the blink of an eye Rune whipped open his inventory and stabbed his fist into the icon showing the last stockpiled coin and the energy bar on his wand shot up to full. As Crumble bounced at him Rune activated his wand and stabbed it right into the Corrupture’s side. A bolt of lightning ripped from the end and covered the Corrupture’s body.

            Crumble screamed and unrolled from the force of the attack he’d just suffered. “ **Bang Bang Critical FINISH!** ” Sling’s Pamaka seemed to yell even louder than usual as he fired a round of gatling bullets ripped into him. The demonic jester just had time for a look of surprise to cover his face, then he burst and flowed away into the sky as defeated Corrputure always did.

            A second later Crush’s metal fist suddenly came down, hitting nothing. For the first time he was totally silent in disbelief that his ally had just been defeated by the Kamen Riders who’d been unable to do anything against them before. Then Rune turned to face him and unleashed a fireball right at Crush, hitting him from point blank. The rhino-faced Corrupture cried out in pain then as his clothes caught fire, but Rune immediately launched another fireball right into the burning center of Crush’s chest.

            Rune changed to another spell and fired it off, a huge jet of flame shooting out of the wand and blasting Crush back 20 feet. The hulking Corrupture was starting to recover and narrowed his eyes in rage, then pushed back against the flames. A shot rang out and exploded against Crush’s shoulder just before another exploded against his other shoulder, knocking him off-balance. Sling slapped in a code on his Pamaka and fired a big cannon blast into the vulnerable burning spot on Crush’s chest and knocking the Corrupture down.

            Then suddenly Rune held his wand up above his head and jumped high. “ **Taddle Critical Strike!** ” A fireball burst behind him, forming the shape of a phoenix with wide wings and trailing tails.

            “ **Bang Bang Critical Strike!** ” echoed an identical voice. Sling jumped into the air next to Rune. A hot wind blew down the street, carrying clouds of thick brown dust along with it. Both Kamen Riders came down in a blazing double jump kick right into the burning ring on the fallen Crush’s chest. A look of horror, wide mouth gaping and eyes flickering. Then he burst and flowed away.

            “That still would’ve been easier with full power,” Sling muttered.

            “Your idea to trick them worked pretty well, though,” Rune admitted.

            Sling chortled. “It did, huh? I suppose you’re waiting for me to say looking helpless is so easy for you,” he said with a pant after the intense attack they’d just made.

            They stood up, dusting themselves off. Behind them was a whimpering noise, and the turned to see Chomp, the last of the three Corrupture war party. He reared back his head and sprayed a blast of snot at the two Riders by they easily jumped out of the way.

            “Save your strength, I’ll handle it,” Sling said, then aimed his gun.

 

XXX

 

            It was only for a second but the world went a bright white as another of Mirage’s bombs went off right in front of him, but Utsura was jumping right through the blast and leaned back into a jump kick as he came through the flames. His boot slammed into Mirage’s stomach and knocked her down. She gasped as the wind was knocked out of her and rolled a few times, letting Utsura turn and face Master Terror.

            Seeming to grin, the Corrupture leader fired a burst from his snake-staff, training it on Utsura as he ran behind parked cars trying to escape. One blew up as the Corrupture’s power hit it, then a second one, then Utsura jumped on top of the third and jumped straight at Master Terror. His sword was held high.

            Master Terror tried to jump back out of the Rider’s reach, but Utsura leaned forward and swung hard and fast, slashing his enemy across the body twice. He gasped in pain he could somehow feel, but without warning his free hand stretched out of its sleeve and grabbed the Rider. Master Terror stabbed the fangs of his staff into Utsura’s arm, cutting right into his armor.

            But the villain had surprise on his side, not strength, and even as burning venom rushed through his arm Utsura recovered enough to yank free and flip the lever on his Gamer Driver. “ **En En Critical Finish!** ” it roared as he raised his katana over his head. Master Terror gasped in horror and his arm stretched out of his sleeve to grab the dazed Mirage and pull her in front of him suddenly.

            The burning green blade cleaved right through her. Behind his mask Utsura gaped in horror as Mirage dissolved away into the sky. He made an awkward swing with his katana that managed to knock Master Terror down and sent his snake-staff rolling away.

            But then Utsura’s arm went totally numb and his sword dropped out of his fingers. He stomped closer to Master Terror to finish the job, the villain looking over to where his weapon had landed and his arm started to stretch out to grab it.

            He never got the chance. There was a loud sizzling bang and Master Terror’s arm broke into splinters. Sling stepped up, his gun smoking. He clicked the trigger button on Scorching Kitchen, the Gamer robot flying down and splitting apart into his apron and weapons. Master Terror got up and started running away as fast as a skeleton could go. Sling seemed unbothered, pulling a pineapple out of one of his pods, then pulling a leaf out of the top revealing a sparking fuse. He tossed it after Master Terror, and the pineapple exploded as it hit the skeleton, scattering bones into the air.

            “You done with the others?” Sling asked over his shoulder. Behind them Rune had changed to his Level 3 form too, and a smack on the head with his cane popped one of the last of the spiders. Only two more were still in sight, and they were crawling up over the top of a building and out of sight.

            “Looks like it’s over,” Utsura sighed loud with relief, clutching his aching arm.

 

XXX

 

            Strange 8-bit monsters were still circling in the sky, a fiery horse galloping across the clouds and a screaming ghost with three heads flying the other direction, but Utsura tossed a Doctor Mighty Gashat up in his hand and locked it into the slot in his bow. He started pulling it back to unleash its power and restore things to normal, silently hoping it would take away the pain in his arm from Master Terror’s snake bite too.

            But then he stopped and glanced back at the other two Riders. “Would either of you care to do the honors?”

            Sling shook his head, and Rune looked away. He decided to let it go, and pulled back the string, wincing at the pain in his arm where he’d been bitten.

            Then a cold tingle raced up his neck. Utsura jumped forward just a second before a giant sword with a black blade came swinging down, cutting into the thick mask on his back.

            Wielding it was a samurai in heavy, shining black armor with the horned faces of oni worked in gold into the forearms of his gauntlets and cuffs of his boots. The chest plate was a dark, blood-like red, and he wore a mask with the face of a grinning hanaya demon. It was the same horrifying samurai on En En Chambara’s label.

            “Ikiru…” Rune breathed as if he couldn’t believe it.

            “Who?” Sling asked, drawing his oversized butcher knife.

            “The Master of Shadows, the last boss in En En Chambara,” Rune explained, his hands quivering and the dice atop his cane jangling.

            “So?” Sling asked again, still not impressed.

            “So,” the towering demonic samurai replied for him, “only one person’s ever actually made it to 100% completion of the game. And it’s not one of you, that’s for sure!”

            Behind him Utsura had hit the trigger on Mighty Sketch but Ikiru whipped around swinging his giant nodachi in only one hand. Ikiru’s weapon was nothing but a blur of blackness as it connected with Utsura’s chest. Three quarters of his health bar had disappeared before he’d even touched the ground.

            “You’ve had enough fun for today, Kamen Rider,” Ikiru said, but turned toward Sling and Rune, who went into tight defensive stances. Ikiru didn’t close to attack, though. Instead he snapped his fingers, but the result was a sound like an earthquake.

            It felt like it too, Rune and Sling being knocked staggering by a wave of invisible force coming from Ikiru’s fingers. Was he _that_ powerful?

            As if answering the question the two Kamen Riders were facing he lifted his massive sword over his head. A golden dragon’s head was etched into the hilt of the weapon with a red jewel clutched in its jaws that started to glow. A second later the blade turned blinding white and Ikiru smashed it down on the ground. An even stronger shockwave ripped through the air and the Riders were only on their feet for another second before they blacked out.

            From out of the sky flew down a woman in a black dress with skinless wings sticking out of her back, Queen Akuire. Then a cowgirl with a shotgun leaned against one shoulder with a pair of lips on the barrel as big as her own misshapen pair stepped out of a shadowy corner, Crimson Candy. “Gather them up,” Ikiru said simply, waving his finger at Sling and Rune’s unconscious forms.

            “You don’t have to tell us that, sugah,” Candy replied.

            He ignored her and turned back to where Utsura was laying. His eyes went wide in surprise as he saw someone else standing between them, a girl in a dark school uniform with her arms held wide in a hopeless defensive move.

            “You can’t have him,” Kiiko said. A weird colorful light with block edges flashing in her eyes and around her fingers. She clapped her hands together and a bubble formed around her and Utsura, small block-like shapes on the edges forming together. The bubble turned a bright blue and shattered. Kiiko and Utsura were gone.

            Ikiru didn’t shout with rage, or destroy his surroundings. Instead he slid his giant sword into its scabbard on his back. Quietly, he said, “He’ll be lucky to keep that arm, never mind save the day. But still, I wish you luck.”

 

**See you Next Game…**


	12. No-Gear Level and Prosthesis

            A sudden sharp tremor seemed to rip through the entire city for just a second. Windows rattled. People staggered. Dogs howled as a terrifying power no-one could see passed through.

            And in the center of the city a five-tiered palace with black roofs and windows that looked like gaping mouths and eyes. A giant blue bird with a saw-like beak and curved yellow horns perched on one tall edge, a fat dog with two heads perched on another below it, snorting flames.

            Peering out from the highest window was Ikiru, Master of Shadows, dark eyes peering out from the eye socks of his Hannya demon’s mask. In the distance, just outside Genm Corp.’s headquarters, he could see a pair of shining shapes appear. They were Kiiko Mishiranu and Kensei Hidenaga, lying helpless and spent in the parking lot as security guards ran over to them.

            A faint swish of skirts made the dark samurai’s ears prick, but his hands hung at his sides, not flying to the hilt of his giant sword. “Will he survive?” asked Queen Akuire, the woman walking into the room in her elegant black and silver dress, the red gems on her crown and the elaborate jewelry covering her neck and fingers seeming to glow with a light of their own.

            Ikiru growled in answer. The beams in the floor creaked loudly and Akuire flinched back. “That idiot Master Terror got him bad,” the dark samurai said. “But he’s strong. I have faith.”

            “Things have been encouraging so far,” Akuire said, regaining her composure.

            “How much longer do you think you’ll be able to hold out?” Ikiru asked, watching as Genm workers poured out of the office doors and carried Kensei and Kiiko inside.

            “For tonight. After that, I don’t know,” Queen Akuire answered. “Candy’s starting to slip too.”

            The dark samurai turned away from the window and drew his massive sword. “We’re doing all we can. Soon they’ll have to manage without us.”

            The demonic queen smiled, looking more tired than evil. “You think they’ll actually be up for it?”

            “We thought so when this all started, didn’t we?” Ikiru reminded her. “Now it’s time for them to prove it.”

 

XXX

 

            Again the security guard pushed her back. But again she stumbled back and then slumped against the wall with a sound halfway between a sigh and a sob.

            “ _Shouldn’t_ we be taking him to a hospital?” a Genm tech whispered to another one behind her.

            “It’s gone,” the other replied grimly.

            “What is?”

            “The only hospital that can treat something like what’s happened to him, stupid,” replied the second tech. “Or maybe you forgot about that??”

            Kiiko tried to shove the guard out of the way and he actually staggered off-balance for a second but the other guard grabbed her shoulders just as her fingers closed around the door handle.

            Then suddenly the door swung open and dragged her inside, Kiiko and the guard landing on the floor on top of each other. She looked up to see Kazumono, an exhausted look on the technician’s face and a pair of burnt out Doctor Mighty cartridges in his hands, thin trails of smoke still rising from their crispy circuit boards.

            “They…it must’ve worked, right?!” Kiiko yelled at him.

            “No, Mishiranu-san,” Kazumono said. “Neither worked, I was afraid they might not.” He looked over his shoulder on the cot where Kensei Hidenaga lay on a wooden bench since they didn’t have anything close to a bed. There was a shiny green blotch on his right forearm that had already crawled halfway up his thumb. Kensei groaned and twitched. Blood vessels in his neck throbbed, making Kiiko’s stomach clench.

He shook his head. “We were afraid of this; a Kamen Rider is ‘reconfigured’ to be able to use their powers, get into Game Areas when no-one else can. But being part human, part something else…it looks like there are other effects, like the Doctor Mighty carts not working on him.”

            “So use the rest of those things!” Kiiko screamed as she pulled herself out from under the guard. “You’re just going to let your biggest asset die?!” She grabbed Kazumono by his jacket and shook him angrily for a second until the guard got up and pulled her off.

            Kazumono just shook his head again. “We can’t use them all up like that, Mishiranu-san. These are too rare and fragile. They needed to be saved for the worst emergencies…”

            “You don’t think—” Kiiko started to yell in anger, and the guard grabbed her shoulders to keep her from attacking Kazumono. He gave her a such a sharp look with his bleary eyes she stopped in the middle of her sentence.

            Then he dropped the burnt out Gashats on the floor. “Call an ambulance for Hidenaga,” he ordered. “We can’t stop the poison, but I think there’s a way to stabilize him if nothing else. You!” he said suddenly, pointing past Kiiko and the guard to the pair of techs in the hallway outside. “Get the Mighty Hand and bring it with.”

            “Yes sir!” both said at the same time and scrambled down the hall.

            Silence came over the hallway. Then Kiiko dashed over and hugged Kazumono, who just groaned weakly. “You can save Kensei-kun??”

            “I think so,” the exhausted tech answered. “But he’ll be in a precarious situation, maybe for the rest of his life.” She looked up at him to see if he’d explain, but Kazumono walked past her without saying anything more.

 

XXX

 

            His hands slid over the corner where the wall met the ceiling. Doku certainly wasn’t used to probing for secret levers, but the guy in the game never had either. For the third time he checked where the catch that opened a secret passage was supposed to be

It wasn’t there.

Looked like they’d put him in a different cell; he’d have gladly faced a tunnel full of spider-people if he knew he could look forward to finding his power items at the end.

            He jumped down from where he’d been searching and leaned against the wall, the sourest expression he could manage on his face. Once again the guards stopped outside Doku’s cell, drawing hooked khopesh-like swords from the belts of their dark feudal soldiers’ armor and turning to face him with their weird purple turkey-shaped heads. They chattered at him in a high-pitched alien language, but he was sure they were laughing at him.

            Then suddenly the turned around and framed the doorway as Queen Akuire walked down the hall past his barred door, looking right at home in the ugly alien palace she and her kind had created. As she walked past she didn’t say a word, but she turned for a second and gave Doku a weird look that seemed almost sympathetic in spite of the thin, tight skin framing her face.

            For his part, Doku only scowled and looked away. He was sure they’d only spared his life a little longer to try and make him feel powerless when they showed him what their big plan was. But he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. The Kamen Riders had come too far to be taken for weak now.

            Then Queen Akuire walked away, and the guards looked back over their shoulders and chattered at Doku again.

            Without warning he charged the door and suddenly if awkwardly kicked one guard’s leg through the bars, then in that second he was off-balance grabbed him by the arm and shoved him into the other one. The guards crashed together, then slumped down and didn’t move again.

            That was one problem taken care of, but Doku patted their belts and pockets and felt nothing inside. He tried leaning against the bars and could see a small metal cabinet in the wall.

            Inside he knew were the keys to the cells. However, he hadn’t actually been playing Taddle Quest and gone on the side quest that gave him the innocuous piece of red string that the guards didn’t think to take away when they searched him. The piece of string that it turned out could stretch itself impossibly long and flip open the cabinet, hook the keyring and drag it back to him.

            If he could get out, though, he was sure he knew where to find their gear. Then the two of them could show the Corrupture—

            “What in the hell’s going on?” demanded a very familiar voice from the next cell, the one up the hall, next to the locked cabinet (the cell where the player was locked up if they didn’t have the magic string).

            “Are you finally up again?” Doku called back.

            “Don’t get cute, Dasao,” Yoshoku snapped at him. “What’s going on?”

            “We’re trapped in a dungeon. But the keys are in that little cabinet near your door,” Doku explained.

            Yoshoku leaned hard against the bars, fingers clawing at the padlock that hung on the front of the little door that held the thing they needed. It was just out of his reach, and after a minute his arm disappeared back into the cell. “Hey, wait a second,” Yoshoku said. “Throw one of those swords over here.”

            “What if you don’t catch it? Somebody’s bound to hear it,” Doku replied. “And you don’t have your henshin gear either, do you?”

            “We’re not getting any closer to it sitting around here waiting for their buddies to come see what you did,” Yoshoku sighed. “Throw it already!”

            With a bit of hesitation, Doku crouched down and reached out to drag one of the guards’ swords over to him, then made an awkward shaking throw across the hall down to where Yoshoku was locked up. The blade clanged as it hit the bars, bounced off and clanged again as it hit the floor.

            But Yoshoku had no trouble grabbing it and with one ferocious swing hacked the lock off the key cabinet. He caught the edge of the door with the tip, then pulled it open with a rusty _creak_.

            “Hurry!” Doku called. “I think I hear somebody coming!”

            Keys jingled together as the iron ring holding them went down the slope of the blade. He grabbed them and stuck the first one into his cell’s lock. Nothing happened and he tried a second one.

            “Hurry up!”

            “I heard you the first time!” Yoshoku yelled back while he tried the fifth key. That time the lock gave a satisfying click. He kicked it open and ran down to Doku’s cell and tried the key that’d opened his cell, and nothing happened.

            Doku had been right about what he’d heard, though: a second later a pair of those turkey-headed people ran in through a door and immediately went for their swords. They ran closer and as they did they drew their weapons.

            Yoshoku was on the first one as Doku opened his cell. At least they were free, but Yoshoku had the feeling it was the beginning of a very long night.

 

XXX

 

            In the bright fluorescent light Kiiko had finally been able to see the sign saying “Seito University Hospital.” It had sounded familiar, but she was too mentally exhausted to think much about it.

The ambulance driver winced as he learned hard to pull up in front of the emergency entrance, his shoulder still sore from the thirteen times Kiiko had punched him there when he’d tried to tell her civilians weren’t allowed to ride in the cab with the driver.

Soon Kensei was wheeled into an operation room, and Kazumono had brought with him a white glove with no fingertip and a plastic panel on the back. Rows of buttons ran across it, and in the back corner was the pink shape of the game character Mighty, winking and making a peace sign with his fingers.

“…what are you gonna do with that?” Kiiko had asked in terror. “Chop off his hand and put that on there instead?!”

“Mishiranu-san, you watch too many movies,” Kazumono groaned. “I talked to the doctors and they’re going to graft it over the wound, so he can use this to keep it from getting worse.”

“But that won’t make it better, will it?” Kiiko pressed.

“Excuse me, miss, but we need to start the procedure immediately,” said a nurse, shooting Kiiko a penetrating glare. “Please wait outside.”

            They hadn’t let her in the operation room no matter how much she’d kicked, though. She sat down in the waiting room again, then got up again. Then walked across the room again, and walked back again.

            She thought about going out to get something to eat, but then remembered she’d have to kick the orderlies’ shins again to let her in so long after they stopped admitting visitors.

Then she remembered she didn’t need to eat.

            A nurse screamed outside suddenly, making Kiiko jump up, a cold tingle running up her spine. Had the Corruputure somehow snuck into the hospital? She should’ve felt them coming before they’d gotten anywhere near. She ran out into the hall, and standing there, panting and covered in sweat, was Kensei Hidenaga.

            He had no shirt on, his skin glistening with sweat, and over the huge poisoned wound on his arm was a dull white glove. The one they’d apparently just finished attaching to his arm.

            “Where are we?” Kensei gasped. He flexed his fingers open and shut and green spots were visible on his fingers when he closed his fist all the way.

            “We’re at a hospital, Kensei-kun,” Kiiko sighed with relief. “It looks like they found a way to fix your arm…?” she went on hopefully.

            “Kiiko, what happened?” he demanded, marble-sized drops of sweat running down his cheeks. “Last thing I remember I was fighting this giant samurai with a demon face…his sword was on fire.”

            She came up and gently wrapped her arms around his, and looked up at him over his shoulder. “He knocked you out. I got you away before he could hurt you more. You were already hurt from before though, there was all this poison from where that snake bit you…”

            To her disappointment Kensei kept breathing hard and looked right past her. Coming down the hall was Kazumono, the tech somehow sporting another day’s worth of stubble even though she’d seen him only a few hours ago. “How do you feel, Hidenaga?” he asked. “It looks like they implanted the hand all right.”

            Right then three orderlies ran around the corner and tried to surround Kensei. The new mechanical glove he had on sparked and he easily pushed two of them all the way down the hall until the crashed into the wall. A nurse came up as the last orderly was trying and failing to grapple with Kensei. “Hidenaga-san! You’ve got to come back and rest! You’ve just had an _operation_!” she wailed.

            “No, this is encouraging,” Kazumono interjected, smiling a little through his new bristly beard. “This is the main thing the Mighty Hand is supposed to do: give him bursts of strength. He’s just getting used to it, is all.”

            “You think so?” Kiiko asked, trying to be hopeful but she still froze as she saw the wide-eyed look on Kensei’s sweaty face.

            The tech smiled and patted her shoulder. “Trust me, he looks just like someone after finishing a ten-hour Knock Out Fighter tournament. Give him a few minutes, he’ll be fine, I bet you anything.”

            Indeed, as the orderlies got up and rubbed their sore heads, Kensei sat down on a bench. He shut his eyes and sucked in a long, noisy breath. “This itches… _so much_ ,” he breathed finally. He turned and looked over at Kiiko and Kazumono. “What did you do to me? What is this thing?”

            “It’s the Mighty Hand, Hidenaga,” Kazumono replied. “It was our secret project. We had them surgically attach it after your arm was infected with poison. The doctors thought you’d have to have it removed…but the Mighty Hand was built to make you stronger, we hoped strong enough to stand up to the poison.”

            Kensei gritted his teeth and clenched a fist. “So I’m stuck with this thing on _for the rest of my life_??”

            “Probably not,” Kazumono answered, unfazed by Kensei’s angry question. “The old Kamen Riders were genius doctors, remember? After they get back, they can probably figure out how to fix your arm.”

            “…you think so?”

            “Hey, one of them died and came back as a Bugster,” Kazumono went on. “They changed him back into a human.”

            Kensei covered his face with his hands, then grimaced and twitched as he felt the plastic covering of the Mighty Hand on his face. “I have to get out of here…I need air.”

            “Let’s go show your parents,” Kiiko suggested, taking Kensei’s hand again, the one not covered by the glove. “You can tell them about your new powers, and all about your plan to save the other Riders.”

            But as she said that he pulled away, starting down at the glove tightened around his hand like another layer of skin. “No,” he said, his gloved fist twitching slightly. “I just a robot had attached to me!...I’m not ready for them to see this. Show me _your_ family, Kiiko-chan. What do they think of you being friends with a ‘great hero’?”

            She froze at his suggestion. “We can’t! They’re away!”

            “Then just let me see your house. You’ve seen both of my parents’ houses. Please, Kiiko. I need a distraction right now, something else to focus on for a little bit. I don’t want to see places I already know.”

            “You can’t come to my house!” Kiiko screamed. Then suddenly she pushed past Kensei and Kazumono, and ran down the hall before anyone could think to stop her.

            But Kensei didn’t plan on stopping her.

 

XXX

 

            The streetlights had started glowing by the time he caught up to her. Part of him knew he should’ve been surprised by what he saw, but the rest of him knew better.

            The park in front of Kensei was green and alive, if not that large. It was paved around the edges and had a small path running through the middle between two bushes that formed the halves of a circle. In between the bushes were two benches, and sitting on one of them, knees up to her chest and her face pressed hard against them, was Kiiko Mishiranu.

            She didn’t look up as he walked closer, his footsteps almost silent even though he was making no effort to be sneaky. At the same time, he didn’t want her to see him coming and bolt again.

            When he was about fifteen feet away Kensei stopped and said plainly, “I never guessed. I’m sorry.”

            Kiiko raised her head slowly to look at him, like she’d been expecting him to come after her the whole time. Her eyes were red, her cheeks glistening with tear streaks. “What didn’t you guess?”

            “That maybe the reason you never talked about your family was there was nothing to talk about,” Kensei said, coming a little closer and holding out a hand that had stopped shaking. She didn’t move, so he came close enough for her to take his new gloved hand in hers. Kensei sat down next to her then, and waited for her to make the next move.

            For a while she looked over at him without saying anything, then she faced forward and said, “It’s not your fault, how were you supposed to ask something like that?”

            “Is there anything I can do, Kiiko? I mean, did you run away or something?” Kensei asked as gently as he could.

            Again she was silent, then she answered, “I don’t know. I don’t know if I ran away or anything. I can’t find any family with my name, and I don’t remember much of anything before the day I came to your school—”

            “ _Our_ school,” Kensei gently cut her off. She gave his hand a squeeze, not seeming to notice the cold plastic covering it anymore, then she went on.

            “All I remember before that is knowing there were a lot of people in trouble. Something bad was coming, and somehow I knew _your name_. I knew you’d help me when something bad happened. And it did. And _you_ did.”

            He smiled back faintly and gave her hand a gentle squeeze of his own. “Thanks, but you’ve been taking some pretty crazy risks going into Game Areas to help me find what we needed and things like that.”

            “Because I knew you’d keep me safe, Kensei-kun.”

            Then he gently pulled his hand away from hers. “Kiiko, I promise we’ll find out where you come from soon. But you said there were some really strong Corrupture in that castle over there, right? That’s where they took the others. Can you help me find the other Riders before something bad happens?”

            She looked at him again, now just uncertainly. “Are you sure you want to be in a team with them?”

            He squeezed her shoulder. “Kiiko. You trust me. Someone trusted them enough to think they should be Kamen Riders too. For right now, I need that to be enough, okay?”

            “…okay.”

            “Promise me, Kiiko-chan.”

            “…I promise.” Slowly, Kiiko put her hand on top of his on her shoulder. “You promise you’ll help me find out?”

            “I promise, Kiiko.”

            She looked down at the Mighty Hand, her eyes turning white for a few seconds as she studied it, as if looking inside it and viewing its power. Maybe she could do that too. “You know how to use that already?” she asked.

            Kensei nodded and made a fist and held it out in a cheesy heroic pose. “He made it sound pretty simple. Honestly I’m kind of looking forward to trying it out on that samurai guy from before.”

            Kiiko jumped down from the bench, smiling wide and looking exactly like her usual energetic self. She held out her arm, a finger pointed at the top of the palace roof. “Then let’s go! We’ll show them nobody beats us at our own game!”

            With a chuckle he shook his head with his faint smile on his face. “Let’s play,” was all he could manage to say.

 

XXX

 

            They’d been lucky.

            The guards who’d found them went down quickly, to Yoshoku’s surprise but not Doku’s. According to him they were just low-ranking enemies not meant to be much of a challenge, since this was part of a game the player had to deal with despite not having their weapons.

            The lock on the heavy door in the basement room rumbled as Doku put all his strength into turning a key in it. He actually stumbled and fell down as it thunked and the door swung open. Inside were rows of swords, axes, and magical glowing staves hanging up on the walls and on wooden stands.

            But Doku was looking right past them, to where a short plastic wand and a green Rider Gashat were kept in a clear glass case lodged in the wall. Next to it was a case holding a green and pink gun with a blue Rider Gashat next to it.

            Racks of weapons almost fell over as the two teens dashed across the room, bumping into them and not even noticing as they reached out for the cases holding their power items. Doku picked up an axe only to break open the front of the case and then threw it across the room where it hit the wall and clanged. In another second his fingers wrapped around his precious Gamer Septa and Taddle Craft, at the same time Yoshoku closed his grip around the butt of his gun in one hand and Bang Bang Sunset in the other.

            “Finally, we’ve got a chance,” Doku breathed.

            “How much good is it gonna do ya though, kid?” asked a snide female voice. Walking through the door to the armory was the owner, Crimson Candy, the monster cowgirl leaning her rifle over her shoulder as she smirked with her huge blue lips. Right behind her was Queen Akuire, her skull-like face neutral and placid in contrast to the bombastic Candy.

            Both of them held one of the Riders’ Level 3 Gashats in one hand.

            “Betcha wish you had these!” the cowgirl laughed. “Wouldn’t do ya much good, though!”

            “Oh yeah? Why not?” Doku asked, clenching his teeth but trying not to give anything away.

            “Sweetie, with these y’all are Level 3…me and Queenie here are _Level 25_.”

            The numerous rubies on Queen Akuire’s flashed as skinless dragon’s wings formed out of her back, knocking over racks of weapons around her, and her already bony-looking hands stretched out into skinless clawed fingers. “I suppose you still plan on fighting your way out with those pitifully weak trinkets we let you find.”

            “No,” Yoshoku retorted, and for a second Candy and Akuire stopped and exchanged a surprised look. Even Doku looked over at him, squinting as he tried to figure out what Yoshoku was talking about.

He got his answer: “We’re planning to beat you down, take back what you stole and show you how much we hate monsters taking over our city. Henshin.”

            He loaded the Gashat into his gun and stabbed his fist through the icon showing his form’s mask. Doku did the same, grinning at Yoshoku’s defiance even though he knew they were in for the fight of their lives.

            Rune’s robe dropped over his shoulders and Sling’s hat and poncho landed on him. The two Kamen Riders gripped their weapons as they readied themselves for a fight.

            The two Corrupture facing them down leaned back.

            Queen Akuire’s eyes turned a deep purple and she lashed out with power. Then the entire wall of the castle basement was gone.

 

XXX

 

            As the ghost-horse jumped through the air, Utsura clapped his new gloved hand over Kiiko’s mouth as she beamed over at him, looking like she was about to squeal with excitement.

            Hooves touched down and slid across the west roof of the building. Utsura waited for a second but there was no sound of an alarm, and none of the monsters watching the castle showed up to attack them. This had been a great example to approach from after all, it seemed.

            Almost like these super-strong Corrupture weren’t so invincible after all.

            “Where are Doku and Yoshoku?” he asked over his shoulder. Kiiko pointed down at an angle, the tip of her outstretched finger glowing and getting brighter the lower she pointed it. “Guess that figures,” he muttered and summoned his katana. He jumped down from the ghost-horse and caught Kiiko as she jumped down too. “You ready?”

            She nodded and smiled, “We’re going on a new adventure!” Utsura grunted as a horrible burning itch came from under the Mighty Hand, pushed two buttons at the same time and a rush of power went up his arm and up through the blade of his sword, making it glow a soft yellow. He raised it high and slashed the bars off the closest window.

            “Can you see the Corrupture in here too?” Utsura asked as he followed her finger with his oversized eyes.

            “Yes. There are three really bright ones, and a lot of dim ones. The brightest one is down on the ground floor,” Kiiko answered. She scratched at her wrist, and Utsura shifted his feet as he wished he could scratch the itch under his surgically-attached glove. “I’ve never seen one as bright as that before,” she admitted a second later.

            “Good thing I just got a cool new power-up then, right?” he laughed, he hoped reassuringly.

            She grinned at being reminded. “Right! You did!”

            “So let’s go find the others,” Utsura said, leading the way with sword in front of him, its glow already gone.

 

XXX

 

            A trail of wailing ghostly faces whipped through the air, the edges tearing through the front of Rune’s hood and barely missing his throat.

            He lifted his left hand and hit the trigger of his Gashat, creating a ring of icons showing Game Areas, and he hit one with the tip of his wand. The city street underneath him started changing into a field of yellow grass and the buildings into trees that stretched out of sight overhead. Colorful coins shot out of the circuit board of the Gashat and sprayed off chaotically into the forest.

Queen Akuire’s bone claws flickered as she readied another attack, but Rune was already running out of the way, toward where a grey coin had landed in the crook of a tree branch. It wasn’t one of the rare ones that restored magic power, but in a fight like this he was counting on any advantage he could get.

            Behind him he heard the unmistakable shrieking whistle of Queen Akuire shooting her Double Soul Blades. As he came down from his jump Rune held out his wand as far as he could and tapped the grey coin, that showed a man with a sword breaking in two as it hit his head. The coin disappeared and Rune’s wand turned a steely grey.

            Just in time for him to turn around and deflect a whirling crescent blade coming at him. It clanged off the wand and spun away into the trees. A minute later Rune could hear a sound of a tree toppling over, but his attention was focused on the other blade coming his way and swatting it off into the sky with his metal wand.

            “Not bad, Rider!” the queen called up to him, smiling faintly. He stared back with the oversized eyes in his mask; was she actually complimenting him?

            Then she raised her claws and a dark blue portal formed over her head and a horde of skeleton bats flew out. Rune twisted the knob on his wand until the window on its back showed three small fireballs, which he fired into the warm of undead bats. The nearest two shattered into a storm of bone chips and the others off crazily, startled by Rune’s suddenly attack. But another group flew out of Akuire’s portal and swarmed Rune.

            The Rider swatted at the bats, crushing one, but the rest bit him with their fangs, slapped him with their wings and spewed tiny fireballs all over him. In just a second Rune yelped and fell out of the tree.

            “…but this ends now,” Akuire said. The portal over her head shrank and morphed into a horned dragon’s skull. Dark energy started collecting in its throat.

            “I had a feeling you’d say that,” Rune replied, then suddenly went diving to his left and held out his wand as far as he could to hit a light blue coin, showing a transparent man in front of a city skyline.

            And he disappeared.

            Just as the dragon skull breathed its jet of dark flame, Akuire suddenly made it rise into the air so it blew the tops of trees off in a line stretching out of sight. “It didn’t get him, did it?” she breathed low.

            Suddenly a magenta coin showing a man splitting into three flipped onto the ground to her right. It dissolved into a cloud of pixels and a line of eight identical Kamen Rider Runes appeared next to her, their wands glowing with power.

“No, it didn’t,” they all said in perfect synch.

Then eight Gamer Septas fired at once, pelting Akuire with a wall of freezing wind, blowing snowflakes the size of tractor tires at her from their combined power. Akuire was blown into the sky by the awesome wind that had been conjured up against her.

In midair her bone dragon wings spread wider and Akuire managed to steady herself. She held up her hands, gathering power again, but Rune’s attention was on something else.

When she’d been spinning end over end, she’d dropped something. Something small and bright white. The Gamble Paradise Gashat. It wouldn’t be much of a boost against a Level 25 Corrupture.

But it wasn’t the time to be picky.

Unfortunately it wasn’t the time to grab it either. The ground cracked then seemed to explode. A skeleton with a long, reptilian skull crawled out of the dirt, one curled horn still intact but the other broken off. In seconds almost twenty more of them had crawled up between Rune and his stolen Gashat.

Above him, Queen Akuire cried out in pain and jerked horribly from side to side, then a dark purple light formed in her eyes as purple bolts of light danced over her arms and her skeletal wings. She yelled something in a voice so loud it almost blew Rune off his feet, and the army of skeletons ran at Kamen Rider Rune.

 

XXX

 

The roof of the wooden saloon building of the Western-style Game Area that Sling chose finished forming, and the dirt crunched under Crimson Candy’s boot as she walked into the middle of the street to face down Kamen Rider Sling. His hand was wrapped around the butt of his gun.

“We gonna have a showdown, Rider?” Candy laughed.

“No,” Sling said. Then with all his trademark speed his gun seemed to just appear from out of thin air leveled at her chest. Before Candy even had a chance to unshoulder her rifle he’d squeezed the trigger and sent a bullet screaming down the street at her.

Candy gasped and fired back, managing to hit Sling’s shot, but as she did a cloud of brown dust exploded from it and engulfed her. She coughed as it billowed into her oversized mouth, and even though it cleared a second later Sling was nowhere in sight.

“Not bad,” Candy murmured to herself. “You’ve learned a lot pretty quickly, squirt.”

She whipped around as she heard a noise off to her side, but it was just a jackrabbit that took one look at her and run off into the pixelated hills as fast as it could go.

Slowly she went down the street, keeping her eyes open for any sign of Sling lying in ambush. He might not be stupid enough to face her in direct combat with the radical difference n their power levels, but Candy was sure he was too stubborn to try and escape.

Suddenly she heard a rattling crash from the storage building at the end of the street. Eyes flashing purple, Candy fired a shot into the building’s doorway. The entire back wall of the building disappeared in a storm cloud of splinters and broken boards and the storage building cracked and crashed down on the site of its missing support.

And then a barrel finished rolling out of the doorway and spilled its load of nails onto the street.

A barrel had tipped over. That was the sound she heard.

“Where aaaaaaaaaaaare you, sugah?” Candy called out as she rested her rifle over her shoulder. There was no answer, but a few seconds later came a faint sound from behind. The Corrupture cowgirl turned and fired a grinning bullet from the mouth of her gun. The bank at the end of the street exploded. Hunks of wood and scraps of bills filled the air as a massive fireball consumed the building. A thick round shape flew straight up into the air and crashed down in the middle of the street hard enough to send Crimson Candy a few inches off the ground. It was the bank’s heavy vault door.

It fell over on its side with another crash, then everything was quiet again. Keeping her eyes peeled, Candy walked closer to where the bank had just been standing. Then she ran over as she spotted something among the huge cloud of debris coming down: a torn fragment of a brown leather poncho.

“What?! No! Damn it, this wasn’t supposed to—” she exclaimed and started to run. She glared at her gun. “I didn’t load this with such powerful ammo…it’s getting worse.”

            Just then Candy spotted a glint in the upstairs window of a building off to her right. Before she could even think, a bullet hit her between the shoulders. A snaking barrage of more bullets ripped from the window peppered all over her. Kamen Rider Sling came diving through the window, his gun aimed upward. He pulled the trigger and an angry, writhing rattlesnake shot out of the ring of barrels. They came down and wrapped themselves all over Candy’s arms and legs, then sank their fangs into her.

            She yelled and jerked back and forth violently in agony, dropping her rifle on the ground. While she was distracted Sling ran up and grabbed a maroon Rider Gashat off her belt.

_“You never even saw me coming!” he laughed._

_“Yosh-kun…run away,” Candy gasped._

_Sling was so surprised he almost dropped his reclaimed his Gashat. “What did you just call me?” he demanded._

_Her response was an enraged growl and she ripped the snakes he’d covered her with off her body. Her eyes suddenly glowing with an evil purple light, Candy snatched her rifle off the ground and fired it right at Sling’s head._

_XXX_

_The last of the guards gave a high-pitched, almost comical screech as he went flying thanks to a blow from Utsura’s sword. As soon as the Corrupture landed Utsura was walking through the door they’d been trying to guard, eager to finish this. Kiiko followed slowly, her mouth clenched uncertainly._

_“Is everything okay?” the Rider asked over his shoulder._

_She scratched her head. “I can’t really tell where the really strong Corrupture is anymore. They didn’t leave, I just…have trouble telling where they are the farther in we go. It’s like something’s making my sense blur.”_

_Utsura looked through the doorway, craning his neck up. “Wonder if that’s why!” he said, pointing up with the tip of his sword._

_On the other side of the door was the main hall but a surprisingly plain one, only marked by four red pillars in the corners with golden engraving of flowers. Hanging in a ball of light suspended from the ceiling, two dark shapes slowly rotated. It was hard to make out details since they were staring right into a bright light, but the shapes were unmistakable._

_Rider Gashats._

_“Where did those come from?” Utsura asked out loud and turned to face Kiiko, who shrugged. “Is that maybe what you thought was the strongest Corrupture?”_

_“It’s a little of both,” a menacing voice chuckled as its owner stepped out from behind one of the columns._ As he stepped into sight he seemed to grow, and grow, until he was half as tall again as Utsura was. It was the dark-armored samurai from before, his Hannya mask seeming to grin even more fiendishly at them. His huge sword was already in his hand, the blade resting on his shoulders.

            “Kamen Rider Utsura, wasn’t it?” he asked. “The power you sensed was from those, it had the feeling of a Corrupture because I’ve been here, keeping watch over them. And it should probably go without saying, but I have to kill you for planning to take them.”

            “We’re not scared of you!” Kiiko declared.

            “Oh?” the demonic samurai replied, an amused undertone to his voice. “Have you ever fought a Level 30 enemy?”

            “Yeah, we’re not scared!! We have THIS!” Kiiko said and awkwardly hoisted Utsura’s arm to show off the Mighty Hand. “Show him strong you are!”

            Utsura grunted as a horrible stinging came from under the Mighty Hand, pushed two buttons at the same time and a rush of power went up his arm and up through the blade of his sword, making it glow a soft yellow.

            Ikiru laughed and leveled his own sword at Utsura’s head. The blade erupted in white flames. “Yes! Show me your power, _Kamen Rider_ ,” Ikiru challenged.

            Slowly Utsura raised his sword, slapping a button marked x2. The yellow glow covering his sword doubled in brightness as he slashed at Ikiru who easily lowered his own sword to parry it.

            The sound of the weapons meeting shook the whole palace. Kiiko gasped, the sound lost in the horrible clang of drowning her out.

Utsura stumbled backward and almost fell down, his arm numb from the power he’d charged with his attack. His opponent clutched his flaming sword with both hands and took a long, heavy step closer to Utsura.

            The young Rider stabbed another button on the Mighty Hand, x3, and an even brighter glow covered his arm and flowed up to cover his weapon. As it did a change seemed to come over Ikiru. His body jerked suddenly, and then he went into a fighting stance again, a menacing purple glow in the eye sockets of his demonic mask. He charged at Utsura, who swung his own katana up to meet Ikiru’s powerful slash.

            A shockwave ripped through the castle, worse than before. A dark aura spread out from Ikiru’s body and started covering the whole room. Utsura aimed the tip of his sword at Ikiru’s mask and charged straight at him.

            And underneath the power taking control of his body, part of Ikiru smiled.

 

            **See You next Game…**


	13. Heartrending Cutscene

**(Again, this chapter is pretty fight-heavy. End of an arc, so no surprise there. If you find that tough to read maybe do it a piece at a time.)**

 

            The walls of the pixelated palace shook as two glowing swords clashed again. Utsura’s sword-arm trembled from the awesome force of his enemy’s blow, and he took just a second too long to recover and attack again. Ikiru lashed out with his heavy boot and connected hard with Utsura’s stomach. The young Rider gasped as the air was squeezed out of his lungs then went sliding across the floor.

            He climbed back up, but Ikiru was looking past him. At Kiiko. “She’s the one who led you here, isn’t she? The one who’s so sure of your victory even with that pitiful level you have.”

            “Leave her alone,” Utsura growled in warning.

            “I don’t think I will,” Ikiru replied. “In fact I think I’ll see what you fight like knowing what an idiot you were bringing an unarmed girl into our territory.”

            White flames surrounded the blade of his nodachi as he charged Kiiko.

            “NO!!” Utsura shouted and jabbed the trigger button on his belt. A circle of icons showing different Game Areas appeared and he hit one with the tip of his Gashacon Tana.

            Immediately Kiiko and the castle hall disappeared from in front of Ikiru. Instead he was standing in a forest, a light blue sky overhead and soft pink cherry blossoms covering the treetops.

            Behind him Utsura stood on a wooden bridge. He was looking up at the pink petals falling past him  “ _Hanafubuki kirari_ ,” Utsura said in observation, a strange outside influence seeming to come over him with their surroundings.

            “ _Iza yuke, samurai!_ ” Ikiru laughed, and leveled his giant sword. “ _Sono inochi wo mamoru tame!_ ”

            “Let’s _bushido_ ,” Utsura replied calmly.

            “ _Shoubu shiro!_ ” Ikiru jeered.

            Utsura replied by raising his sword, then motioning for Ikiru to come at him. The dark samurai clutched his weapon harder and the blade burning even brighter, the rest of the weapon turning red hot, but the dark samurai didn’t seem to notice.

            Then he rushed Utsura, swinging his flaming nodachi in front of him. Utsura pressed the x5 button on his Mighty Hand and his body glowed with power before he met Ikiru’s swing with his own sword.

            There was a blast that pushed both of them backward, Utsura’s boot snapping through the plank on the bridge it was pushed against. Ikiru went flying through the air, sliced a cherry tree in two by crashing through its trunk but landed stumbling on his feet. “Not bad, Rider. Can you keep it up all night, though?” he taunted.

            With a hard effort of will Utsura forced his numb arm up again and to tighten his fingers around the hilt of his sword. He raised it to defend himself as Ikiru came at him again, slashing down at Utsura’s neck. Suddenly Utsura shot to his opponent’s left as nothing but a red and yellow blur, the blade cleaving through the wooden bridge instead of his body.

            The red and yellow blur came blasting over at Ikiru next and a green streak from the blade of his sword connected with Ikiru’s stomach. A flurry of words appeared in the air, HIT! Ikiru gasped out in pain but Utsura closed in and pressed the attack even as the glow of his burst of power faded, going into a high kick that connected with Ikiru’s chest and knocked him off the ground.

            Then, his body shaking terribly, Utsura staggered up and slammed his fist into Ikiru’s demon mask.

           

XXX

 

            As the first skeleton rushed at him, wielding a rusty cutlass, Rune dodged to the side then swung his wand low at the skeleton’s leg and knocked it over. He thought about using a spell to even the odds, but he hadn’t found any of the coins that refilled his energy and realized he’d need to pace himself for this fight.

            Another one got close and he swung his staff again, the bird’s wings cutting right through where its spine met its skull. Those were sharper than they looked! The headless skeleton staggered around blindly flailing out trying to hit Rune, who slashed through its spine, cutting it in half. This time it stayed down.

            Playing a hunch, Rune switched his wand to its single fireball spell then twisted the knob backwards as he activated it. The tip of the wand glowed with heat, and he cut through it even more easily, the bone arm flying off into the trees. Before it attacked again he kicked it hard in the ribs and sent it flying back into two other skeletons

            Two of the undead monsters suddenly grabbed his arms from behind as another one charged him with a notched battleaxe held in its fingers. Just before it got close enough to slice his head off Rune swung his wand and took one arm and the skull off at the same time.

            Instead he pushed himself hard backward, falling down on top of the two skeletons as hard as he could. They didn’t shatter but their grip weakened enough for him to yank his arms free then run for the spot in the broken ground where he thought he saw Gamble Paradise fall…

            There, sticking out of the dirt was a piece of bright white plastic. A gang of skeletons ran in to try to block him but Rune jumped and slid, his momentum carrying across the ground between them.

            In another second the Gashat was in his hand, then it was in the backup slot in his Gamer Septa.

            “You think that’s going to help you?” Queen Akuire laughed down at him, just taunting him now. “You’re still not even close to my level! And raising the dead is nothing for me!” Just to prove it she lifted her hands and the ground started shaking as another army of the dead crawled up.

            Rune sparked his Gamer Septa and the Gamble Gamer appeared out of its title screen overhead. It split apart and dropped his dice-covered coat onto Rune, its head detaching and forming a top hat and mustache on Rune’s mask.

            “Honestly, a mustache?” Queen Akuire sneered.

            “Power’s power,” Rune countered. “Let me show you mine.”

            “ _Show me, little boy_ ,” she said with a malicious smile.

            As another swarm of skeletons crawled out of their graves Rune raised his cane and sent the wheels on his chestplate spinning. Lemon. Lemon. Lemon. The chute underneath the wheels spewed out a stream of shiny yellow fruit that blasted a row of seven skeletons off their feet. He turned and blew over another row of skeletons with a stream of fruit.

            By the time it stopped there were just a pair of confused skeletons standing in the obliterated clearing. They exchanged a look with each other, and when they looked up at Rune he was right in front of them and smashed their skulls off with a swing of his cane.

            “And is that the power I’m supposed to be afraid of?” Akuire asked.

            He turned around and faced up at her. “No,” he replied. Then he ran away into the forest.

            “…wait…! Where do you think you’re going?!” she shouted after him. He didn’t and a second later had disappeared between the trees.

 

XXX

 

            Crimson Candy’s rifle roared only a few feet away from Kamen Rider Sling’s head. In the blink of an eye he drew his gun and shot down the bullet with one of his own.

            Then he was off and running again before she had the chance to make him a target again, ducking behind a stack of barrels. A minute passed. Candy fired her rifle at the barrel on top and with a roar splinters and nails rained down. Still Sling didn’t come out.

            “Sugah, you comin’ out so we can settle this once and for all?” she called out.

            “You’re the one who said how much higher your level is,” he retorted. “You really think I’m stupid enough to just come out and give you a straight fight?”

            “I’m giving you two seconds to come out for one!” she yelled. “One, two!” She squeezed the trigger on her rifle and her bullet blew the stack of barrels up in a massive fireball. As the debris cleared, there was no sign at all of Kamen Rider Sling.

            But the title screen of Scorching Kitchen had appeared in the air and the red shape of the Kitchen Gamer floated out of it and split apart, dropping an apron and chef’s hat onto Sling’s shoulders where he stood on the roof of the hotel. She took aim at him again but he pulled a jar off the bandolier he wore and loaded it into the back of his gun, then sprayed the ground at Candy’s feet. She slipped and her shot missed him by a mile, exploding in the air in a puff of yellow fireworks.

            Sling jumped down and drew another jar off his bandolier. He threw it at Candy, who ducked, but as it spun past her another jar was coming her way. Sling shot it with his gun and a cloud of red dust covered Candy. Her eyes and mouth seemed to burn, and she coughed and yelped at the same time while she tried to aim her weapon.

            “Personally I think this batch of cayenne’s too strong, going to have to complain,” Sling said casually, then pulled a round yellow squash out of the pocket on his apron. “But this year’s gourds are the best I’ve ever seen.”

            He threw it at Candy just as the cloud was clearing around her. It landed by her feet. Then it exploded.

            Candy went tumbling through the air and disappeared onto the roof of a stable. “Don’t tell me you haven’t got a taste for vegetables!” Sling yelled up.

            “Let’s see if you got a taste for _lead_ , kid!” Candy answered, springing back up with a huge gatling gun clutched in her hands. She aimed at Sling and sent a hailstorm of bullets down at the Kamen Rider, who ran for his life with Candy’s crazy laughter sounding out over her bullets.

 

XXX

 

            And in the main hall, Kiiko Mishiranu watched as Ikiru dueled with Kamen Rider Utsura. The dark samurai’s sword seemed to glow even hotter and his strength seemed to grow with every swing. Utsura would fend off the slashes but small dents were forming in his blade. He wouldn’t be able to hold out for long against a Level 30 enemy.

            Kiiko tried to push against the edge of the Game Area into the cherry blossom forest. To get inside and offer what help she could, but Kiiko stopped herself and took a step back from the edge.

            Utsura created a Game Area when she’d been threatened by his enemy. Now he was fighting back with only his most basic powers and letting his weapon be destroyed. He could be using his more powerful Gashat, and then he wouldn’t have to fight on the Corrupture’s terms.

            …but he wasn’t. He’d created the Game Area to get Ikiru’s attention only on their fight, she realized. And he was probably limiting his power to make himself seem vulnerable to keep Ikiru busy as long as he could.

            She looked up at the ball of light above the pixelated edges of the Game Area, where the two Gashats were still spinning. If she could get to those, well, who knew? The old Kamen Riders might even finally come back help out.

            The trick was for her to find a way to get to them.

            She could do it. Kensei was counting on her.

That statue in the corner of the room of the lord’s mistress was pretty tall…

            Then the castle lurched and threw her to the floor, then it stretched higher into the sky toward a rippling disc of light.

 

XXX

 

            The ground trembled and Rune lost his footing, slamming his head into the trunk of a tree.

            Was Akuire behind him? He looked up and saw the dark queen in the distance, gliding along over the trees as she looked for him. She hadn’t just attacked after all.

            But then what could possibly have strong enough to make the ground shake _inside_ a Game Area? They were supposed to be closed off from the outside, weren’t they?

            He didn’t bother to worry about it, he had a much bigger problem on his mind. Queen Akuire was one of the last opponents in Taddle Quest, and was meant to be battled by high-level characters. He was going to have to be tricky to make up for that. Briefly he opened his inventory and looked at the five coins he’d managed to scavenge, all of one type, and all he’d been saving for an emergency.

            Overhead he could hear a menacing crackling sound. Rune closed his inventory again and turned around for just a second to see Akuire with her skeletal hands held over her head, gathering power in a huge dark sphere. Then out from her collected power slithered a pair of snake-like skeletons, each at least ten feet long and with jaws that could swallow his head in one bite.

            If he was going to win this, he needed a miracle.

            And perfect timing.

            The two skeleton dragons smashed through the cover of trees and weaved back and forth. Rune held his cane up in front of him, the gem on the top glowing, then swung it through the air in front of him. A pair of massive transparent dice bounced out from the end. One of the dragons was coming too quickly and crashed right into them while the other arced up into the treetops.

            As it came down again Rune readied himself. It started to pass under the large tree in front of Rune, who suddenly aimed his cane at it and fired a playing card as tall as he was through the trunk. The tree groaned and fell over, landing on the second dragon’s back half.

            But the first had recovered by then and flew over and smashed through the tree trunk pinning its ally. Both skeleton dragons came twisting through the air Rune’s way but he’d had the second he needed to make his next move.

            As the first skeleton dragon closed in, jaws snapping hard enough they shot sparks, Rune waited until the last second and then lashed out with his cane. The gem on the end scraped _hard_ into its skull, bone chips flying. More surprised than hurt as he was the Kamen Rider who lacked the most when it came to pure strength, but surprised enough it flew to one side and barely missed him. The second skeleton dragon closed in, snarling even more angrily at Rune standing up to them. He stared into its empty eye sockets for a second.

            Then he ran.

            Above them Queen Akuire spread her wings and flew after Rune from her safe vantage point. But through the trees, she failed to see him tap a big yellow coin on the ground, showing a blurred figure of a man.

            Through the air, the skeleton dragons spiraled after Rune. The Kamen Rider seemed to be slowing down as they closed in on him. They opened their jaws to bite into him.

            Instead they flew right through him. The Kamen Rider they’d been attacking flickered and disappeared.

            Yelping in surprise, the skeleton dragons spun crazily through the air. One crashed headfirst into a tree and the other bellied into the ground and slammed its skull into a rock. Rune dropped out of a shadow in the trees and behind the stunned monsters.

            “ **Gamble Critical Strike!!!** ” the Gamer Septa yelled even louder than usual as if reacting to the scale of the fight. A huge transparent roulette wheel appeared and the skeleton dragons dropped into one of the slots.

            Immediately the wheel went into a spin, going faster and faster until it was a blur. The skeleton dragons tried to fly off again but dizzily crashed into each other and fell into two new compartments. Rune lifted his cane, the gem on the top glowing with a blinding light. A huge white ball appeared, bouncing between the slots on the roulette wheel. With a loud crunch it came down on one skeleton dragon, smashing it into dust. Then next it came down on the the other who disappeared in a cloud of dust too.

            While he still had a second to breathe, Rune opened his inventory and took out all five of his salvaged coins. All five were green and showed a man holding a four-leaf clover. All of them flowed into his body, covering him with a dazzling green glow for a second. He could smell the sun on a grassy valley in the middle of spring. He had the feeling of waking up on the first day of summer vacation; it was an amazing day where anything could happen, and he couldn’t wait to get out and start his adventures.

            Then as soon as the glow faded a blast of surging energy ripped through the trees behind Rune. He ran but the force of the blast pushed him off the ground and smashed him through the trunk of a tree. Marks disappeared off his health bar until only two were left.

            When he looked up, the roof of the forest was breaking up and revealing the roof of the hallway. The ground was shaking and seeming to twist sharply as the Game Area he’d created was fading. What could be powerful enough to totally disrupt a Game Area like this?

But he’d have to worry about the explanation for that later, as Queen Akuire was hovering over him, scowling even more fiercely and small bolts of lightning jumping from the bone claws on the ends of her fingers. “Enough playing around, Rider…”

 

XXX

 

            The statue Kiiko was pushing suddenly jumped as the castle twisted suddenly, then toppled forward and shattered into a hundred pieces as it hit the floor.

            “Aaaaah, no!” Kiiko yelled in frustration. With that she probably would’ve been able to jump to the glowing sphere holding the two Rider Gashats, but the floor kept trembling and the ceiling extended higher and higher, taking the Gashats with it.

            “Now what??” she moaned. Kiiko ran to the window trying to see something that could tell her what was happening. She choked as she leaned against the window and saw that even though they’d been on the ground, the city was stretched out for a mile below them now. Looking up she saw that the top floors of the castle were winding back and forth through the air like a gigantic snake. The top was almost touching a huge rippling tear in the sky. Around it rotated ten black specks, power arcing off of them and feeding the tear.

            It throbbed every few seconds almost like a heartbeat, seeming to get a little wider as Kiiko watched.

            Behind Kiiko came the clang of Ikiru and Utsura’s swords meeting again, but there was a screech and a clatter as Utsura’s sword broke apart in a burst of bright green pieces. The edges of the Game Area they were fighting in was shrinking at the same time, as whatever was making the castle grow was weakening it. Soon Ikiru would be out again, and Kiiko would be a very easy target.

            She looked up as the ceiling kept stretching out of sight, and the glowing ball holding the Rider Gashats got higher out of reach. Taking a crazy gamble, Kiiko got a running start and managed to hook her fingers on a long crack that formed in the wall from the castle’s twisting. After some squirming she got her feet into another crack then scrambled up to another narrow grip.

            The Gashats got even smaller in Kiiko’s view, but she crawled higher after them. Utsura was risking his life against an enemy over ten times stronger he was, she had to make the most of the time he was buying her, no matter how dangerous it was.

 

XXX

 

            The pieces of his blade bounced off Utsura’s boots. As he dropped the broken weapon Ikiru chuckled, but Utsura held out his hands and the wireframe shapes of his two wakizashis solidified into real, if colorful weapons. He spun them in his hands and went into a defensive stance with the swords held out in front of him.

            “You really think you’re going to hurt me with those?”

            Utsura tightened his grip on his weapons. “A big sword doesn’t make a great warrior,” he retorted.

            “Who told you something as stupid as that?” Ikiru laughed, slicing his burning sword back and forth through the air as he came closer.

            “One of the bravest people who ever lived. My big brother,” Utsura said. Then before Ikiru had a chance to answer he ducked under the flaming sword and threw a ferocious X-shaped slash across Ikiru’s chestplate with his own short blades.

            The Master of Shadows was rocked backwards and Utsura came after him, hacking and slashing furiously, carving into Ikiru’s armor even as his arms protested with every movement chips fell from the Gashacon Zashis’ blades. Utsura jabbed the highest button on his Mighty Hand, x10, and a surge of power so intense he was sure he was about to be blown backwards shot up his arms.

            Both wakizashis glowed so brightly it was painful to look at them, so Utsura held them out at his sides as he charged his enemy. Ikiru’s sword flashed out but to Utsura it seemed to be moving in slow motion from all the power coursing through his body. The flaming nodachi carved off the tip of the crest on his helmet but Utsura ducked forward, then jumped up and kicked the weapon away before he went into his counterattack.

“ **En En Critical Crews-Aid!** ” yelled out his Gamer Driver as he slashed his twin swords up Ikiru’s body with so much force the weapons flew out of his hands.

            It was just as well, the Rider’s arms had gone completely numb, hanging uselessly at his sides. His knees shook for a second then he collapsed flat on his back. If his attack hadn’t worked, he was dead.

            The fiery sword fell out of Ikiru’s hand as sparks fountained from the Corrupture villain’s body. Ikiru’s body shook for a minute, then slowly color seemed to seep into the plates of his armor. Streams of red flowed between them and made the black armor shine in contrast to the new color. Tiny cracks formed in his hannya mask, then it shattered, leaving only a bottomless black space inside his helmet.

            “You actually hurt me, Rider,” Ikiru said, his voice seeming to echo out from the bottom of a tomb. “But you destroyed your body to do it. You’ll never survive the last wave of my attack!”

            He raised his hands and the cherry blossom forest shattered into the castle’s main hall. It rumbled and shook around them, cracking the walls, and from every crack slithered a shadowy, inhuman shape with blocky, pixelated edges. In every one peered out a pair of bright, evil red eyes, that seemed like they might absorb his soul if they could get their claws into him.

            With all his willpower Utsura just managed to hold up Mighty Sketch and hit the trigger with his thumb. “See my skills of an artist!” he shot back, then plugged it into his Gamer Driver. The game’s title screen appeared above him and the familiar shape of the Sketch Gamer floated out and disassembled itself, giving Utsura just a second to flip onto his stomach in time for his Level 3 form’s backpack to attach itself to his armor. Four metal tentacles slithered out like a spider’s legs with Utsura hanging underneath. With the strain the Mighty Hand put on his body, letting his suit do the fighting for him might be the only way he had a shot at surviving a powered-up end boss.

            The shadows formed up between the two of them like a wall, then started to closing in on Utsura. Another metal tentacle slithered out, his paint cannon on the end.

 

XXX

 

            A storm of wooden slivers blasted Sling in the back, and he just bent over and ran even faster over the rooftops. Candy was grinning like a maniac as her gatling gun roared in her hands, chewing up the tops of the buildings just a few feet behind Sling.

            Ahead was the last building on the street, which made Candy grin even more sadistically. He threw himself forward as he got to the end, then whipped out his gun and fired a stream of golden honey that stretched across the street and covered the barrels of Candy’s gun. As it spun the honey seeped inside and the spinning slowed and stopped with a horrible metallic grinding.

            She cursed and shook the huge gun like that might clear it from the goo that had already gotten in. While her eyes were off him for a second, Sling plunged his hands into the pockets of his apron. In one he pulled out a pumpkin and in the other he had an eggplant, both with a stalk burning like a fuse.

            Sling looked down at the eggplant. “Let’s see the bad luck this gives you,” he muttered, then threw them at the left and right sides of the building where Crimson Candy was standing. The vegetables went up in massive fireballs, caving in the corners of the building.

            It started heaving forward and Candy screamed above the sound of the building collapsing. Her gatling gun disappeared into the cloud of debris under her feet. Candy herself pitched forward and somersault awkwardly through the air a few times before she landed hard on the ground.

            She looked up and saw Sling standing over her, his gun aimed at her head. Her huge lips formed into a grudging smile. “Looks like ya outfoxed me.”

            “ **Bang Bang Critical Finish!** ” shouted the Gamer Pamaka before Sling pulled the trigger. The ring of barrels spun and fired a storm of small bullets into Crimson Candy from point blank. They finally stopped and Candy dissolved into a stream of pixels that floated off like all defeated Corrupture.

            But where she’d been lying was another form, a woman getting into her forties, with long dark hair and smile lines around her mouth. She looked up at Sling, and a small, weary smile appeared on her face.

            “You really have become a man, Yosh-kun,” she whispered.

            He could only stare down at her, and gasp in horror.

 

XXX

 

            The air turned colder as Queen Akuire floated closer to where Rune was laying on the floor. The purple tinge to her eyes faded, revealing more human eyes, which only seemed to make her scowling skull-like face even scarier.

            He held tight onto his cane, even though the power gauge was less than half. He stammered something, then tried to push himself up with one arm. The queen’s claws shimmered with power as she prepared a magic attack. Around them the castle seemed to be shifting and stretching but somehow not falling apart.

            At least, not completely. And through a crack in the wall, Rune saw something that made his heart stop.

            “Make your peace with this life,” she said in warning.

            Rune flinched away.

            Then threw his cane at the crack he’d seen.

            The wall crumbled and out rolled an indigo coin showing a man flexing with energy on top, and a weakened, confused man on the bottom. As soon as Rune touched it the coin dissolved.

            And then suddenly cuts bleeding out pixelated energy started forming all over Akuire’s body. As they did marks reappeared on Rune’s health bar. The energy meter on his cane shot up to full again as their conditions were reversed by the coin. All those luck coins he’d burned paid off!

            The Corrupture queen sank to the floor as her injuries covered her body. Rune jumped up so hard he almost hit the ceiling, and as he came down his cane was already glowing with power. “ **Gamble Critical Flush!** ”

            A giant 10 of Diamonds shot out of his cane and rammed into Akuire. Then the 9, 8, 7, 6. They connected together with their power glowing brighter as the chain the cards formed pierced Akuire’s body like a spear. She let out one last gasp and fell down with a dry clattering sound.

            “Somebody up there must be looking out for me,” Rune said.

            “Yes, yes she is,” Akuire croaked.

            “What did you just say?”

            A change came over Queen Akuire, with a cloud of pixels pulling away from her body. A girl lay on the floor where she’d been, one a few years older Rune himself.

            And he dropped his cane at what he was seeing.

 

XXX

 

            Under his armor, Utsura’s skin crawled as the legion of shadowy creatures closed in on him from all sides. His paint cannon lifted out of his backpack on its tendril and sprayed around him in a circle. The powerful stream pushed the shadows back for a second but the colorful blotches just disappeared into horrible dark shapes and they started coming in again, faster and angrier than before.

            Desperately Utsura commanded the back arms to lean back and hold him straight up, while the upper arms out of his backpack extended up to grab onto the wall and pull him off the floor.

            It was only a temporary relief, though: the shadows climbing straight up the wall after him. The only thing he could see besides the glistening evil eyes of Ikiru’s army was Ikiru himself, his hands glowing with the bloody red power he was using to control his minions.

            The paint cannon replaced itself with a spray nozzle and blasted the killer shadows with a steady stream. They wheezed as they breathed it in and retreated again, giving Utsura another few seconds of safety. He considered his weapons and what might actually work against an army of shadows, leaning back to try to get _some_ energy back and come up with more of a plan.

            And as he did, he spotted a grey speck crawling upside down across the ceiling in the distance. Hoping the strain on his body wasn’t playing tricks on his vision he blinked and focused on the ceiling.

            The grey speck was the dark uniform of the girls at his school, and even though the glowing orb holding the two Gashats blocked her face he knew it was Kiiko. Only she would be crazy enough to crawl across the cracks in the ceiling.

            But then the shadows charged again, crawling up the wall Utsura was hanging from and the wall on the other side of the room. Maybe he could fight off one group of shadows, but not two, and if he couldn’t then the other one would get Kiiko. He had to cut the problem off at the source, and looked down at Ikiru.

            If Utsura could just land a strong enough attack on his unprotected face or the cuts in his armor, maybe it would be enough to bring him down.

            Enough feeling had come back into his left arm for Utsura to reach out a shaking hand and press the x10 button on the back of his Mighty Hand.

            A rush of power shot out from the glove and throughout Utsura’s whole body and his Mighty Sketch armor. He shook so hard he almost passed out, and his vision went blurry. A thought from his strained mind made the arms off his backpack push off the wall, and Utsura went into freefall. He came down toward Ikiru like a bomb, but could barely see it. The paint cannon slipped back into his backpack and came back out with a big rubber stamp on the end showing Mighty swinging his hammer.

            Ikiru lifted his hands and the shadows he’d summoned gushed straight up through the air at Utsura, but his stamp shot out and slammed into Ikiru’s dented chest armor, and with a deafening echo. The armor crumpled and a bright pink image of Mighty was left inked there.

            The Corrupture villain stumbled back from the power of Utsura’s attack, but they just kept coming, the stamp battering at his armor while the other metal tentacles grabbed the parts of the blur that looked like his arms and pinned them against his sides. Still glowing with energy the stamp smashed into Ikiru’s armor and this time went right through him. Another tentacle came out tipped with a sharp white eraser and raised itself high.

            “ **Sketch Critical Strike!** ” the Gamer Driver roared as Utsura’s final attack lashed out. The eraser sliced across Ikiru’s body through his fractured armor. As it did he gave out a scream that was so forceful it blew his shadow minions to dark shreds. He fell down to his knees, clumps of pixels breaking off from his body. Utsura didn’t care that he was missing seeing his enemy’s demise, he only squeezed his eyes tight hoping some feeling would return to his body now that he’d finally won.

            “I GOT IT!” he heard Kiiko yell with joy somewhere far above him, but Utsura just shut his eyes and tried to let his muscles learn to react to his brain again. Ikiru was still sizzling across the room from his defeat when someone nudged Utsura in the ribs with their foot.

            “Kensei-kun, are you dead?”  
            “Yes,” he groaned.

            “Oh. Do you need any help?”

            “No, I’m fine. I’m dead, after all.”

            “Well, I got the Gashats! You’re the best bodyguard! And that means I’m the best trainer!”

            He chuckled a little then grunted in pain. “Being your friend sure wears a guy out.”

            That made her nudge him again, harder. “Hmph! I was trying to say something really nice, too!”

            “What games are those, anyway?” Utsura asked.

            “Kensei-kun…look!” Kiiko replied instead of answering his question. Moaning in protest he forced his eyes open, and gasped as he saw what had happened to Ikiru.

            Instead of a demonic samurai warrior, there was a man who looked just barely twenty years old. His clothes were dirty and torn, but his features were strong and determined, his body leanly muscled, and his eyes bright and warm.

            “Yuuuuma?!” Utsura exclaimed, all thought for his exhaustion gone. The image of his brother smiled, then lifted up and flew out threw a window high up in the wall.

            He used one of the tentacles to wrap around Kiiko’s waist and the others dug into the to the wall and they crawled up it like a spider. His paint cannon blew the bars off the window, then Utsura climbed through the window as fast as he could.

 

XXX

 

            By the time they got outside the tower was leaning over toward a rippling portal in the sky like a giant ramp.

            Yuuma wasn’t the only figure they were chasing, two more were flying up the incline. Running behind them, not much to Utsura’s surprise, were Sling and Rune. They looked up as Utsura scrambled up between them carrying Kiiko, then almost skidded and fell down as the shapes they’d been chasing stopped right in front of the portal.

            “Thank you, all of you,” Yuuma Hidenaga said with a smile. His body was turning transparent and tiny pixel-shaped bits of him were floating back into the portal. “You’re doing so well, even better than we’d all hoped.”

            “What the hell’s going on here?” Sling demanded, but his eyes were on the ghostly shape of the woman standing next to Yuuma. That must’ve been Futaba, his mother the policewoman. She reached out to touch his cheek even though he was still in his armor. Sling flinched at first, then shook and sounded like he was choking back a sob.

            The third person looking back at them was a girl about Yuuma’s age, with shining black hair and a loving but tired-looking smile. That must’ve been Rune’s big sister, Hiromi. The one he’d talked about when they’d been hiding out from the Corrupture before.

**(Music – Excite)**

 

            “What’s going on here?” Rune demanded, reaching out to touch his sister but his hands going right through her. Utsura sank to his knees and let the tentacles retract into his backpack. Unlike Rune he was too tired to try and get a word in.

            “There isn’t much time,” Hiromi said softly. “So please listen…We were Corrupture. We still are Corrupture. All of the people who died playing Kamen Rider Chronicle…all of us are the Corrupture.”

            “So what are you, ghosts? Are you dead forever? What’s going on?” Rune questioned her, but Yuuma held up his hand for silence.

            “We can’t really explain, Dasao-san. When we woke up we were starting to change already, but we managed to fight back against becoming monsters for a while,” he tried to explain but already his voice was going faint. “We couldn’t find the Kamen Riders from before, so we snuck into the company that made their items hoping we could find another answer. We did, and we sent it to you three, hoping you’d be willing to take over for the other Kamen Riders.” He smiled. “You all did. Eventually.”

            Yoshoku’s mother quickly spoke up next, looking to be trying to cut off another question and not burn up any more precious time. “We tried to control the other Corrupture, scare them into line and do as little damage as possible. But their power grew, because all of ours was growing. It got so strong a little while ago we couldn’t fight it anymore…we were really trying to kill you.”

            Sling clenched a fist and he replied in a quivering voice, “What happens when one of you dies? What happens when one of you goes back in there?” he yelled, pointing past them at the flickering surface of the portal.

            “They sleep,” his mother replied. “When they’re defeated they return here. I hope that means they can be saved…”

            “Suffice it to say,” Yuuma said sadly, “the worst is yet to come. We need you to be ready for anything that comes.” He’d become almost totally transparent. The middle of his body was just gone, and his legs, arms and shoulders was disappearing bit by bit into the portal.

            “Onee-san, don’t go!” Rune yelled and tried to reach out for his sister again, but again his hands went right through her. He threw his cane down at his feet and screamed in frustration.

            Utsura managed to stand up on shaky legs then. “You can’t leave yet! What about the Gashats?? What about Kiiko? Do you know anything about where her powers come from?”

            Yuuma managed to smile slightly at Kensei’s show of determination. “The games are important. The Corrupture are afraid of those, they gave the Kamen Riders the power that defeated the Bugsters. You need to find them and return them. As for your friend…as for your friend…” he blinked like it was getting harder to focus.

            Then Yoshoku’s mother cut into the conversation. “There is one person in there who’s also a captive. A woman. A woman who isn’t human. Pink…pink….,” she repeated, losing herself as she tried to remember. Then she managed to collect her thoughts and went on, “When the Corrupture forced their way out here, it caused some kind of reaction with her body. Part of her came out with us, and shaped itself into…into…shaped itself into her,” she said, raising a disembodied hand to point at Kiiko. The girl gasped and stepped back, and Kensei grabbed her hand to make sure she didn’t stumble right off the roof.

            “We’re out of time,” Hiromi said, only her head left by then and disappearing fast.

            “Kensei, find the games. You have to figure it out on your own now,” Yuuma said, a grim look on his vanishing face. “But always remember…”

            “…keep fighting…” all three of them whispered, just before the last of them disappeared into the portal.

            All three Riders jumped after them, in some impossible hope they might be able to hold onto their missing loved ones. They crashed into the edge of the portal and pushed against it, feeling like they were pushing through a wall of solid rubber.

            They could see the other side. Shapes of people floating everywhere in a frightening, shapeless void. In the distance far, far were three people that had small glowing shapes orbiting their bodies, small shapes like Rider Gashats…

            Then a powerful force shoved the Riders out and they landed hard on their backs on the roof of the castle.

 

            XXX

 

            As the four got up again the ground under their feet seemed to be shaking. It only took a few seconds to realize it actually was: pieces of the castle were falling off and it was only a few minutes away from crumbling to nothing.

            The roof was the first piece to break apart completely, but three shapes came speeding off it.  Utsura with Kiiko behind him on the Big Roller, leaving a trail of paint behind as he arced through the air. Rune and Sling were right behind him, their bikes spraying sparks from their tires as they made the desperate last-second jump off the edge of the castle.

            The three stopped as they hit the edge of a park, Utsura’s bike leaving a wide red streak across the grass and destroying a bench before he fell out of the seat, totally spent from all the power he’d been unleashing that night.

            Rune and Sling looked up at the castle with them as it roared one more time and crumbled floor by floor until nothing was left. The portal spun and shrank smaller and smaller until it had become the size of a window. Then it twirled away out of sight. The two Riders didn’t even turn around to look at Utsura and Kiiko before they rode off. He guessed he didn’t blame them after everything they’d just learned.

            With the last of his energy Utsura pulled the two Gashats out of his belt, then let out a sigh so long it was like he’d been holding it in since they’d left the hospital. Kiiko sat down in the grass next to him and carefully wrapped her arms around his. Kensei gave her a slightly surprised look, then just stared up at the sky.

            “I can’t believe it,” he murmured. “I beat the crap out of my own brother…”

“You were keeping people safe, like a Kamen Rider’s supposed to. He was hoping you’d do that,” she said gently. “Doesn’t that help?”

“He’s still gone. Soon things are going to be worse than ever,” Kensei sighed.

“No they won’t,” Kiiko whispered back to him. “Because you’re the hero. You won’t let it get worse.” Her hand found his and lacing her fingers together with the plastic glove covering it.

High above the moon came out from behind clouds but was still hidden by the tops of skyscrapers. It seemed to flicker purple for a bit, and Kensei thought he saw a monstrous face form out of the craters and stare back at him. “Kiiko,” he said, trying to think of something to say to take his mind off everything that had just happened. “What about you? Are you bothered knowing you’re not human?”

“I know exactly what I am,” she answered right away, then leaned against his shoulder. “I’m Kensei Hidenaga’s best friend. That’s all I need to be.”

He didn’t say anything for a while, not sure if there was anything to say. “Thanks,” he managed. After a while he glanced over at Kiiko and saw the two Gashats she’d recovered in her other hand. “That’s right, you got those back when I was fighting with Yuuma.”

“That’s right,” she said and squeezed his fingers with her own. “You’re the best at keeping me safe.”

“Which ones are those?” he asked, and she held them up. One was a standard Rider Gashat, a tan case with a snarling leopard under the words Night of Safari. The other one was weird, looking like two Gashats attached together. One side was blue-green, the other side was orange. The label showed two versions of Mighty whose bodies were the same colors, under the logo saying Mighty Brothers XX.

“Should we let them go?” she asked.

“You saw those guys inside there too, right? The other Riders need them,” Kensei replied, pointing up at the portal. Kiiko nodded her cheek still against his shoulder, then pushed the trigger buttons on them. The Gashats floated away into the sky, and just before they disappeared Kensei could make out the portal in the sky in front of them.

The two Gashats passed through the surface that had repelled the Kamen Riders so easily. They weaved through the web of motionless people floating in the flickering space, to where a group of young men each wearing lab coats floated. Each also had a ring of Gashats turning around around them, glowing faintly with protective power.

            Then two clawed hands reached out of the darkness and grabbed the two Gashats out of the air, curling around their grips and quivering with anticipation.

 

**Stage One: PvP, Clear**

**Stage Two: Console Wars, Start**

**see you next game…**

**XXX**

**Well, that’s the end of the first arc. Hopefully it wasn’t too bad.**

**Might seem kind of early to start resolving the fights between the individual Kamen Riders, but most of their disputes were over teen ego garbage. In Ex-Aid itself they were so messed up because friends of theirs actually died. It’s not over just like that, though, for what it’s worth.**

**Also for what it’s worth, the first couple pieces of art for this fic’s Riders are up (or will be soon) on DeviantArt. They’re pretty nice, if I say so myself (and none are by me, which probably helps a lot ^^;).**

**Also, I’m looking for a beta reader for the story from here on in. Not to go back and redo the chapters already posted, those are done, but I’d love a second opinion on how to make future more polished. PM me if interested. Being fairly familiar with retro games would be best. Thanks!**

**Thanks for checking out the story, and I hope you’ll check out the next arc too!**


	14. Riding New Generation

            The sky had turned dark and grey and stayed that way for the last four days, raining and thundering occasionally but never breaking to show sunlight. Now it was raining again, and there seemed to be a charge in the air that was irritating the poisoned wound hidden under five and a half feet of athletic tape on Kensei Hidenaga’s arm.

            He scratched at it distractedly, knowing he wasn’t actually doing any good and hoping to just ignore it long enough to slip away from class and do the one thing that might give him some relief.

            “You should just do it now,” whispered the girl sitting next to his desk.

            “No, Kiiko,” he hissed. “Last thing I need is to do something weird and have even more eyes on me.”

            “But if you ignore it, it might get worse…what if they have to take away your arm?”

            He grunted and scratched at the tape covering his arm. As if he needed this on top of everything else going on. He was distracted from where his fingers were for the second he needed to tap a button hidden under the bandages.

            A rush of strength shot through his body which shook even as he realized what he’d done and tried to sit still in his seat. Kiiko covered her mouth, and the teacher’s eyes seemed to zero in on him.

            “Hidenaga, glad to see you volunteer,” the teacher said, adjusting his glasses. “Can you tell us the English word for meaningless claims?”

            “YES!” Kensei exclaimed, clutching his arm. Everyone in the classroom stared at him, the closest ones besides Kiiko leaning away from him in mild alarm. “I mean, yes, sensei…it’s…” He looked down at his desk helplessly even when he knew he hadn’t been taking notes for the entire class thanks to the poisonous itch on his arm. His mind was spinning from all the power he’d just sparked into his body without being in a fight to help direct it.

            He glanced over at Kiiko who quickly wiggled her hand across the front of her desk, where it was hidden behind the boy sitting in front of her. Kensei’s brow knitted together in confusion and so Kiiko did it again, and that time Kensei recognized what she was doing: she was making the shape of one of those American letters, H.

            She traced more. Y, P, E, R.

            “Hyper!” Kensei exclaimed, still quivering. One student snorted and shook her head at him. Kiiko traced another letter, B.

            “Hyper bowl,” Kensei said as he pronounced the syllables of the word in the unfamiliar language literally.

            A few of his classmates laughed in amusement. One boy smiled supportively, who didn’t do so well in English class either. The teacher raised his eyebrow, but replied, “Not bad, Hidenaga. It’s ‘hyperbole,’ though. Try listening a little closer from now on.” He looked down at the textbook in his hand again.

            Kensei sat down again and whispered to Kiiko, “Thanks.”

            “I’m your trainer,” was all she whispered back.

 

XXX

 

            After classes let out, Kensei went down to the room the Kendo Club used to use. Used to use because the only member who ever came anymore was Kensei himself.

            On the way he saw a mob of girls squealing and cooing over a handsome, almost effeminate boy. He looked back and his eyes met with Kensei’s for a few seconds, then he looked away and walked out the gates while hardly paying attention to his admirers.

            Once the door to the training room was closed, Kensei locked it and cracked the can of sports drink he’d brought with him. He took a deep swallow and sighed.

            Everything had seemed to be going relatively well. The other Kamen Riders had started seeming open to the idea of joining forces, and he’d gotten a new power-up even if he was still getting used to it.

            Then they’d had the shock of their lives. It turned out that the monsters they’d been fighting, the Corrupture, were really the people who’d died playing Kamen Rider Chronicle so long ago. And the monsters who’d given the three Kamen Riders their hardest fight ever had turned out to be someone each of them loved and respected.

            “You all right?” Kiiko asked as she seemed to appear out of thin air next to him. Kensei jumped back a few feet.

            “How’d you get in here? I locked the door.”

            “Yeah, but you didn’t mean to keep me out too, so I let myself in,” she said casually.

            “ _How_? I have the only keys anymore. Everyone else gave me theirs.”

            “It’s an easy door,” she shrugged.

            “So a _hard_ door would’ve kept you out?” Kensei asked, shaking his head a little.

            Kiiko shrugged again. “Uh-huh,” she said, then brushed it off with a wave of her hand. “You saw Yoshoku before he left? Did he say anything?”

            The itch started up again under his glove, and Kensei hissed in frustration as he ripped off the bandages he’d hidden his arm under all day. A press of a button and another surge of strength raced through his body. “I can’t keep this up forever, Kiiko. We’ve got to solve this mystery soon…and it’d be a lot easier if we had help.”

            “Well, good luck,” Kiiko replied. “At least Yoshoku’s still coming to school. I haven’t heard anything from Doku at all. I’m a little worried about what he’s up to.”

            Kensei looked at her a little incredulously. “Just a little?”

            She smiled and nodded. “Because I know you’ll keep me safe.”

            Slowly Kiiko sat down next to Kensei on the floor and didn’t say anything while he finished his drink. “By the way,” Kiiko spoke up. “GENM called. They wanted me to ask you to go down there and talk to the CEO today if you were okay with it.”

            He looked over at her, knitting his brow. “Why didn’t they ask me themselves?”

            “They thought you might still be upset from the fight the other night, about your brother and everything…did you tell your parents about that yet?”

            “No,” Kensei admitted, shaking his head. “I don’t know if that would make things better or worse. I mean, my dad thinks we need to move on, finding out I’m a Kamen Rider and my brother’s still alive would be a lot to take in. My mom would go nuts; she’d never let me sleep again until I found out a way to break open that portal in the sky and get Yuuma back out. Like the Corrupture would just let us.”

            “You know,” Kiiko suggested with a light smile, “It might make them get back together, too.”

            “Maybe,” Kensei answered, looking away. “They’re probably waiting for us, right?”

           

XXX

 

            A secretary with a weird kind of plain, artificial prettiness greeted Kiiko and Kensei as soon as they got inside the GENM Corp. lobby. After confirming their identities she said nothing and had her back to them the whole time they rode the elevator up to the top floor. She held out her hand to indicate for them to step out, then as soon as they did she slid back inside and the elevator closed up behind her. The two teens exchanged an uncertain look, then went ahead.

            The doors to the CEO’s office were wide open, and behind the desk sat maybe the most unremarkable man Kensei had ever seen. His shiny round head was almost totally bald except for a thin widow’s peak down the middle and stubbly hair on the sides. The sight of him just seemed to slide off Kensei’s eyes, and instead the teen was drawn to look at the colorful video game posters decorating the windows behind him. Even the one in the middle showing a bald monk surrounded by zombies, “Monk of Temple.”

            The name plaque on the front of his desk said “Tsukuru Koboshi”.

             “They’re here,” he said with a nondescript smile into his computer screen, then looked up at Kiiko and Kensei. “Hello. Glad to see you’re doing better, Hidenga-san.”

            “I’ve had a few days to let it sink in,” Kensei said with a shrug, and glanced over at Kiiko. She didn’t seem to notice.

            “Well, I hope your memories of what happened are still clear,” Koboshi said. “We’re hoping you can confirm if you saw someone specific while you were looking through that ‘portal’ your report mentioned.” He held out a handful of 10 x 12 photos that Kensei picked up.

            On the front of the first one was a young, almost boyish man wearing a doctor’s white coat and a bright green shirt. It showed a picture of two men in denim overalls, one with a shovel and one with a pickaxe, digging their way into a cave where a giant worm and a brown demon seemed unhappy to greet them. Across the top was the title: Dig Champs.

            “Kiiko, isn’t this the name of an old video game? Dig Champs?” he asked.

            “Yeah, it is. It wasn’t very good,” she replied.

            “It’s not about the game on his shirt,” Koboshi interrupted them, looking a little exasperated. “Do you remember seeing him inside the portal?”

            “Actually, yeah, I do,” Kensei replied. “He was way in the back but he had a bunch of glowing shapes around him that looked just like Rider Gashats.”

            Koboshi smiled a little and nodded, Kensei guessed that it was the answer he’d been hoping to hear. “What about the next one?”

            Giving the CEO a curious look, Kensei flicked to the picture underneath. It showed another man in a white doctor’s smock. His hair was lighter and his expression deadly serious. There was a strength in his eyes that made Kensei forget for just a second it was only a photo. “Yeah, this guy was there too. He had a Gashat near him.”

            “Excellent,” Koboshi said, smiling even wider. “The next one?”

            Obligingly Kensei flicked to the next photo. It was another young man but with a white streak in his hair. He didn’t wear a doctor’s smock like the other two, but he had on a yellow scarf, or something, on over a plain black shirt. He was looking off to the side a little with a sour expression like he wasn’t taking the photo shoot seriously. “I remember him,” Kiiko spoke up. “He had some Gashats near him too.”

            “I don’t remember seeing him,” Kensei replied.

            “I’d never forget a face that scary,” Kiiko shivered.

            Without waiting for Koboshi to prompt him, Kensei flicked to the next photo, showing a cocky, almost bored-looking man in a red Hawaiian shirt covered with white sailboats. “I remember him, I think. In the back near those other guys,” Kiiko said.

With a shrug he flicked to another, of another young man wearing a black jacket over a bright blue shirt, a cocky smirk on his face. Kensei looked over at Kiiko, but she shook her head. The last two were of the exact same woman. She was pretty, he guessed, with medium brown hair and wearing a pink nurse’s smock with a name badge that said “Karino”. In the other one her outfit was way more garish, with a short pink wig and a weird little yellow and green hat titlted at an angle on the side of her head. She had on a yellow dress and white sleeves, and it took Kensei a second to realize she was cosplaying as Poppy Pipopapo from that one rhythm game. Maybe it was unfair of him to judge, but she seemed a little old for something like that

            “No, I don’t remember seeing either of these ladies,” Kensei answered.

            “Definitely not,” Kiiko agreed.

            Koboshi nodded slowly. Maybe he’d been expecting those people to go unnoticed. They handed back the photos but he exchanged it with one other one. It was of a slightly older man than the others, his hair well-coifed and wearing a black shiny blazer, grey shirt and purple necktie. There was what Kensei would’ve thought was a mischievous light in his eyes.

            “Is there any chance you saw him too while you were looking through the portal?” Koboshi asked, his expression slightly grim, his hands folded together tightly on his desk.

            “No, I don’t think so,” Kensei answered. “There were so many people, though.”

            “I didn’t see that man,” Kiiko added.

            Koboshi sighed. “I don’t know if it would be more worrying if you did or didn’t see him.”

            “Who are these people?” Kensei asked. “They must be important if you brought us here in person to find out if we recognized any of them. Wait…these are the old Kamen Riders, aren’t they?”

            Koboshi nodded grimly. “Yes, they and their assistants who’ve gone missing. The last man--”

            “…is Kuroto Dan, the old head of this company, right?” Kensei finished for him. “Yeah. He was an evil Rider for a while, then he helped them beat the Bugsters but only because he was working on his own plan behind their backs or something, wasn’t he?”

            Koboshi nodded.

            “But what do you need to worry about him for? He died, didn’t he?” Kiiko asked in reply.

            The CEO sighed and clenched his hands together tighter on his desk. “The Ministry of Health is very worried that a new generation of monsters means he might not be, and that he might in fact be behind it somehow. But…at least this means we know where the previous Kamen Riders are, and that their equipment is getting back to them as you find it.”

            “It’s true, then?!” a sharp female voice interrupted them. Koboshi gaped and recoiled from one of the computer monitors on his desk.

            “Who’s that?” asked Kiiko.

            Koboshi’s mouth flapped open and shut a few times before he managed to find his voice. “It’s…it’s one of our major shareholders,” he stuttered. He turned the flatscreen around so it faced the two teens.

            The screen showed a long-haired woman whose dark eyes stared out from it so intently Kensei felt sure she was about to burn a hole in his chest. A dialogue tag down in the corner gave her name as Nico Saiba.

“You know where Taiga Hanaya is??” she practically screeched at them, making Kiiko and Kensei took a step back in surprise. “Is he alive?! When are you getting him back??” she demanded.

            “We think he’s alive,” Kensei managed to reply after he recovered a second later. “We don’t totally understand what’s happening, so I don’t really have a timeframe—”

            “They need a way to find the Gashats before they activate,” she cut him off. “Tsukuru, get your people to find a way to do that.”

            “But Saiba-san,” he sputtered, “we’re so close to a breakthrough on more powerful new Gashats for the Riders…”

            Kensei looked over at Kiiko, who shrugged, a neutral look on her face. Koboshi looked over at them, opening his mouth slightly, silently pleading for help. Putting a hand to his mouth, Kensei cleared his throat. “Ah…Saiba-san, right?” The lady on the screen gave him a sharp look that seemed to push him back a step with an unseen force, but didn’t say anything. “We were warned by people with inside information that much worse Corrupture will be coming soon. We’ll be needing more powerful weapons to protect people.”

            “Which one are you?” she asked, a little pointedly.

            “Utsura, Saiba-san,” Kensei replied.

            Next she looked past him at Kiiko. “And who are you? The sidekick?”

            Kiiko bristled, clenching her teeth and her fists at the same time. “I’m the _trainer_ , thank you very much!”

The face in the monitor glared at Kensei again. “Who told you about worse monsters?”

            “My brother. He’d become one of them.”

            “And you still trust him?”

            “Honestly?” Kensei asked. “I have a feeling he’d make a better Kamen Rider than I would, but he died fighting in Kamen Rider Chronicle.”

            A long, uncomfortable moment passed in silence. “That’s what Emu would’ve said, I bet,” she finally sighed.

            “I hope I get to meet him and find out,” Kensei replied. “For now I’d kind of like to hear why nobody told us if they’re so close to a whole new bunch of upgrades.”

            “Thank you both for coming in!” Koboshi said hurriedly, turning the monitor back around and waving his hand toward the door. Shaking his head, Kensei humored him, shutting the doors behind them as they left.

            “She was annoying,” Kiiko said as soon as the door clicked shut. Kensei snorted as he looked over at her. “What??” Kiiko asked, totally nonplussed.

            He snorted again at her question. “Nothing. Let’s get out of here.” Giving him a weird look that landed between Kensei’s shoulders, Kiiko shrugged and followed.

            As they got outside the building, neither of them realized they were being watched.

 

XXX

 

            After he shut the door behind him and took of his shoes, Soichiro Hidenaga heard the rice cooker lightly percolating. But over it he heard a familiar series of sounds coming from the second floor of the house. “Kensei-kun? I hope you’ve gotten your schoolwork done!”

            “We’re doing important training, Hidenaga-sama!” a girl’s voice called down the stairs.

            “Oh. You’ve invited your friend over…again.”

            On the floor above him, Kensei and Kiiko each shook a pair of short batons as smiling dolphins danced back and forth on the waves on his TV. Another 10,000 points jumped out as the dolphins crossed and did a loop-the-loop before diving back underwater. On Kiiko’s side a huge red X covered the screen and 10 points was added to her score. A pirate ship carrying a crew of bandana-wearing skeletons sailed onto her side of the screen and stuck their tongues out at her.

            “You’re getting really good!” Kiiko smiled supportively at him, missing even more signals and the skeletons jumping onto each other’s shoulders to form a pyramid and all making faces at her at the same time.

            “Thanks, Kiiko,” Kensei said, not wanting to comment on his “trainer’s” own skill at the game. “We should probably stop soon, though. My dad’s gonna want to see me in a little bit, since I’m only back here for a while.”

            “We can’t just stop your training in the middle!”

            “My dad’s not going to think this is ‘training’…”

            Kiiko looked over at her friend in disbelief, and as she missed even more signals stormclouds covered the sky on her side of the screen. Giant rippling waves tossed the pirate ship up and the skeletons on it were spun in the air every time the boat bounced up off the water. “Did you even tell him you’re a Kamen Rider yet?” she asked.

            He shut off the GameDeck and sighed. “It’s about time I did, isn’t it?”

 

XXX

 

            As they came down Soichiro was setting out two places, then saw Kiiko coming down too and his expression hardened a little “Is…your friend joining us again tonight, Kensei-kun?”

            “If that’s okay, tou-san.”

            “I’m glad you’ve made such a good new friend, but I hope you’re not spending _all_ your time playing games. You’ll have to start thinking about universities before too long, you know,” Soichiro reminded his son.

            “He has a really important reason,” Kiiko replied for him.

            Kensei tried to hold up his hand to quiet her, but his father frowned. “He has an even more important reason to do well in school.”

            But Kensei should’ve known that Kiiko was too much of a “trainer” to back down when her prize pupil was being maligned. “He’s saving the world!” she blurted out.

            “By playing a _video game_ when he’s supposed to be _studying_?” Soichiro demanded. “Young lady, friendship is one thing, but Kensei has his future to think of.”

            “Tou-san,” Kensei interrupted as gently as he could, but he didn’t manage to hide a hard edge in his voice.

            His father looked up, eyes wide at the interruption. “What is it, Kensei?”

            “…she’s telling the truth. It is to save the world.” Not giving his father a chance to doubt him, Kensei held up his arm and pulled back his sleeve, showing the Mighty Hand. “This is a weapon they gave me to make me stronger against those new monsters you must’ve heard about.”

            Again before Soichiro could speak, Kensei got out his Gamer Driver. “Yuuma sent this to me.”

            “Yuuma’s dead,” Soichiro said quickly.

            “No, he isn’t,” Kiiko replied. “Not really.”

            That remark made a furious Soichiro whip around to face her, so Kensei quickly jumped in. “He’s not. We saw him, he told us what happened to everyone else who died playing the game. They’re alive, but they’re trapped. We’re going to find a way to get them out. Get Yuuma out too.”

            For a horrible minute, there was no noise at all but the gentle clatter of the rice cooker. Soichiro was clenching his teeth in rage so hard Kensei was sure he saw a spark fly out.

            Finally he couldn’t hold it in anymore. “GIVE ME THAT RIGHT THIS MINUTE!” he howled and grabbed for the Gamer Driver, but Kensei dodged backward out of his father’s reach. Soichiro turned on Kiiko instead then. “YOU! YOU’VE BEEN ENCOURAGING ALL THIS, HAVEN’T YOU?! YOU AND HIS MOTHER, I’LL BET!”

            “Because someone has to save us from Corrupture, and he’s the best choice! Have you even seen the other ones?” Kiiko said defensively.

            “GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE! DON’T EVER COME BACK! MY FAMILY’S GIVEN ENOUGH ALREADY!” he roared and stabbed his finger in the direction of the front door.

            In spite of everything she’d easily been willing to face before, Kiiko pushed past him and ran for the door. Kensei put away his Gamer Driver and with a last look back at his father, ran after her. As the door hung open behind them, Soichiro’s hung his head as his anger had a chance to fade.

 

XXX

 

            It turned out Kensei already knew where to look for his friend. He went to the park where she’d gone after running away from him at the hospital before, but she was walking the path along the edge instead of cowering on a bench this time. As soon as she saw him coming she stopped and cut across the grass to get to him.

            “You okay?” he asked quietly, and she nodded with a soft smile. “Good…guess I didn’t know just how much leaving this behind meant to my dad.”

            “He thought your brother died for a long time, right?” Kiiko said and put her hand on his shoulder.

            “Yeah.”

            “Well, he doesn’t know how awesome you are yet. He just needs to see you beat up some monsters, then he’ll apologize.”

            Kensei looked at her, brows, knitted, then laughed.

            “What? That’s how it always works,” Kiiko defended herself.

            “Sure, okay,” Kensei laughed lightly.

            “What? It does!” Kiiko protested. Then her eyes seemed to glaze and she stumbled, catching herself on Kensei’s shoulder.

            He tapped her cheek with his palm and her eyes cleared. “What’s wrong, Kiiko?” he asked, trying to hide his worry.

            It took her a minute to answer. “I can feel Corrupture near. They’re strong. Stronger than I’ve ever felt before.”

            Kensei starred hard at her. “Stronger than _Yuuma_?”

            She nodded gravely at him. “There’s something different about its power, it feels kind of like…you.”

            He took out his Gamer Driver again and locked it around his waist. “Well, let’s go see he feels about _me._ ”

 

XXX

 

            A purple mist, made of flickering blocky shapes, was blowing away as they appeared, a gang of people in mismatched costumes. Chefs. Feudal foot soldiers. Leather-clad motorcycle punks with metal studs all over their clothes. Each of them with a purple head shaped like a virus.

            One of the bikers smashed the windshield of a car with the heavy chain in his hand. A pair of foot soldiers grabbed the side of another car and tipped it over, rolling it through the window in the front of a building.

            People ran as the Corrupture Cells, the various enemy characters, spread out across the street, swinging their weapons as their giant virus heads bobbed back and forth grotesquely.

            Through the people running for their lives came a pair of teenagers running the opposite way. The En En Chambara Gashat was already in Kensei’s hand, but he stopped as he saw what the menace was. “Just those guys?” he asked.

            Kiiko shook her head. “Not them, they’re small. Something else was here, it was _definitely_ a Corrupture!” she said, almost pleading.

            “I believe you, Kiiko, really,” Kensei said, and her posture relaxed. “But let’s start with the obvious problem.”

            “ **Kenjutsu Level 2** ,” the game made its announcement as Kensei hit the trigger and put it into its slot. His familiar yellow suit crawled into existence over his body and the pieces of his armor came spinning through the air, his helmet being the last thing to lock into place.

            In a flash Utsura’s two wakizashi were in his hands, then he ran into the crowd of Corrupture enemies. A chef swung a frying pan at his head but Utsura rammed his fore head against it, his heavy helmet knocking it out of the Corrupture’s hands.

            Foot soldiers jabbed at him with their spears butt Utsura swung his swords in an arc that hit them with a sound like small sonic boom, knocking the spears into the air. He went into a spinning kick and knocked the two Cells flat on their backs. A biker swung his chain and it wrapped around Utsura’s neck. The Rider replied by dropping his sword and yanking hard on the chain, pulling the surprised biker Cell face-first into a punch that knocked him over the roof of a car.

            As Utsura made quick work of the Corrupture Cells, all his attention was on the ones in front of him, and he didn’t see one dressed as a police officer aiming a gun at Utsura’s head. His finger squeezed the trigger.

            And the police Cell was the one who went down, crackling pixels spilling from the wound in his chest. For a minute everything seemed to stop, then Utsura and his opponents looked the other way from the defeated police Cell. Standing on the fire escape of a building was Kamen Rider Sling, his Pamaka still smoking.

            “Everyone all right?” he called down.

            “Did you ask if I’m okay??” Utsura asked back, not quite sure he could believe it.

            Sling shook his head and sighed. “Of course you can’t take care of yourself without me babysitting you,” he said, then looked up and shot down a pair of foot soldier Cells running to help the police one he’d already shot. Aiming his gun high he jumped down and ran over. “Looks like it’s happening already,” he muttered.

            “Kiiko says there should be something else around, something a lot stronger,” Utsura replied, looking over the fallen bodies of the defeated Corrupture. He turned and looked over at Sling. “You haven’t said a word to us for days, what made you show up?”

            “I found out I’d been trying to shoot my mom this whole time,” Sling replied, looking the other way. “Don’t try and tell me it didn’t take you any time at all to get your head around that, Hidenaga.”

            “Okay, that makes a lot of sense,” Utsura admitted, running a hand over the back of his helmet. “Maybe it was a little quicker for me since I had someone to help catch me,” he looked over his shoulder at Kiiko, who canted her head curiously.

            Seeing no other enemies, Sling holstered his gun. “Have you two heard anything from Dasao? He’s in your class, right?”

            “No,” Utsura replied. “He hasn’t been to school at all since the other night at the castle. I guess he’s still dealing with finding out who we were fighting.”

            Sling turned and looked over at him. “The way you say that…”

            “The way I say what?” Utsura asked. He grimaced as his arm started to itch again and he pressed a button on his Mighty Hand, releasing a soothing rush of strength.

            “He’s ‘still dealing with it.’ Like you already think he’ll figure it out and come back and help fight,” Sling said with a little laugh.

            Utsura shrugged. “He was always the most driven of, us all, remember?” he started to say, but stopped Sling laughed at his remark.

            “Yes, yes he was,” the cowboy Rider agreed.

            Under his own mask, Utsura smiled a little. “I don’t see him just giving up and never coming back, you know?” he went on.

            “I might think about staying away too, if I were you,” a voice they’d never heard interrupted. The two Riders turned to where the voice had come from and there stood a young man in a black jacket and blue jeans.

            The first thing Utsura thought was that he looked like an evil Yoshoku, then caught himself thinking that and wondered how long he’d thought of Yoshoku that way. The boy was handsome enough, but he had a cold, superior kind of smile on his face and his short dark hair was so heavily slicked and shining it almost looked more like a plastic helmet with tiny grooves all over it.

            “And why should we do that?” Sling retorted.

“Because you’re paying so much attention to me you’re about to get jumped and you don’t even know it,” he leered.

The next thing they heard was the clink of a chain. Sling and Utsura spun around just as it wrapped around the blade of Utsura’s sword, the biker Cell trying to yank his weapon out of his hand. Utsura yanked back, pulling the Cell close to him and knocking the monster off the ground with a punch.

            The police Cell that Sling had shot down before was jerkily rising up off the ground as if being yanked up again by invisible strings on its arms and shoulders. The wound Sling’s bullet had left was dripping pixels still but closed shut again as they watched.

            The biker Cell was pulled back up onto his feet by some weird invisible force too, just like the rest of the ones that had looked defeated a minute before. As the now-uninjured Cells closed in for another attack, Sling fired his gun in an arc at them and Utsura slashed both swords, pushing them back a few steps. Then Cells started in at them again, swinging chains and brandishing spears.

            “You’ll never beat them with pathetic attacks like those!” the boy laughed.

            The Gashacon Tana, still glowing with the power of his Mighty Hand, went right through the biker Corrupture. He looked down at the blade as Utsura pulled it back out, then fell back on the ground, bursting into a cloud of pixels. Sling gunned down two foot soldiers, but a second later they just rose back up and stabbed at him with their spears again.

            “Let me show you how it’s done, little kids,” the boy said, then pulled something out from inside his jacket. Utsura froze, expecting to be shot in the back, but then the boy put whatever he was holding on over his eyes, and held up something else.

            “ **Swashbuckling Level 30!** ”

            “Level _30_??” Sling said, shocked.

            The boy just smirked and plugged his Gashat into the side of his visor. “ **High Seas Scourge! Plunder the riches! Plunder the wenches! Rule the Oceans!** ” it roared in a voice like their own equipment. There was a flash of light, but just before he had to look away Utsura was sure he saw a log on the boy’s visor: a gold M with a silver V imposed on the middle.

            Then he’d been changed into something much more menacing than a teenager with too much hair gel. He was wearing dark blue and red Kame Rider armor just like theirs, with the same huge eyes set in his mask and a giant gleaming cutlass in one hand.

            “Call me, Corsair,” he said. “And call yourselves obsolete!”

 

**See You next game…**


	15. Downloading Updates-Waiting

    The dirty grey chain whirled in the air again and then whipped out through the air for the new Rider’s neck.  
He brought his silver-bladed cutlass through the air, slicing easily through the worn chain and then through the biker Cell’s torso. The Cell let out a strangled screech and fell down, exploding into pixels that flickered away to nothing.  
    The other Corrupture stopped where they were at seeing one of them destroyed so easily. The new Rider cockily balanced the blade of his sword on his shoulder and laughed.  
    With a pause in the action it was easy to make out the details on his armor now. He has the same giant googly eyes the rest of them did, a bright yellow color. His suit was dark blue, with red boots and matching red cuffs on his wrists. Over the blue armor on his torso was red patterning like the lapels of a jacket fastened with gold buttons, and across the top was a red chestplate. Over it was a shiny black display screen with rounded edges. On his head was a wide, floppy-looking red hate with a long white plume sticking out of the top.  
    “Scared of real power?” Corsair laughed. He didn’t wait for the Cells to give an answer, if they even could, rushing into the middle of their group and hacked down one of the feudal foot soldiers. One looked down at the split spear in his hands before Corsair’s sword lashed out, sending him shooting into the sky like a missile before he popped like a balloon and scattered pixels everywhere.  
    “Damn, you’ve never hit anyone that hard!” Sling said, gaping at the new Rider’s show of power.  
    “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Utsura grumbled. He got out Mighty Sketch, but the fight was already over. Corsair swung his gleaming cutlass in a circle around him pushing back the few Corrupture trying to surrounded him. Then he jumped high, tweaking a button on the side of his goggles.  
“ **High Seas Critical Finish**!” As he came down watery-looking power gathered around his blade and he plunged the tip into the ground in front of him. Waves, literal waves of water, gushed out from where he stabbed and blasted the Corrupture Cells away. They bled off pixels as they scattered in all directions, then popped, leaving no trace.  
    “I lost count of how many that was, but I’m pretty sure it beats your ‘one,’ boys,” Corsair said, turning and pointing his cutlass at them mockingly. He tossed his sword into the air where it spun a few times, a ray of light catching dramatically on the blade  as he grabbed the hilt again.  
    “Just who the hell are you?” Sling demanded. His fingers were clutched around the grip of his gun, the other around Scorching Kitchen, although the power boost it would give him was  next to nothing compared to Corsair’s stated level.  
    “I told you, I’m Corsair,” he replied cockily. “You boys can just stay home from now on. Now that we’re here.”  
    “Who’s we??” Sling snapped. Corsair just walked away, resting his cutlass on his shoulder. He opened a ring of icons around himself and hit one. “Open Cruiser: Coast Raider!” his visor announced. A small sailing ship formed itself out of wireframe in front of Corsair, who jumped on top of it. Its sails spread and it took off into the sky, carrying the mysterious new Rider with it.  
  
XXX  
  
    A minute later, Yoshoku was tucking his Gamer Pamaka away while Kensei and Kiiko walked next to him. Kensei’s expression was distant, his eyes a little unfocused from being in thought, while Kiiko was giving the other Rider a suspicious look.  
    “Where did that other Rider come from??” Yoshoku asked out loud, even as he looked the other way from the other two. “I thought it was tough enough dealing with the Kamen Riders on my own side.”  
    “Where did those Corrupture come from?” Kensei asked, almost countering the question with his own. “You said there was a really strong one around, right?” he turned and asked Kiiko. “Those weren’t it, were they?”  
    She shook her head at the question. “Those ones felt different, but they were nothing like what I felt before. It was so much stronger than anything else…”  
    “Well, that’s it,” Yoshoku said. “I’m calling GENM to get a new game.”  
    “They’re working on them,” Kensei said simply, his mind occupied by seeing a new, incredibly powerful new Rider who seemed to have it in for the old ones. Like him.  
    “Yeah?” Yoshoku snapped. “Well, while they’re ‘working,’ the ones out here doing the real work are falling more and more behind.” Without waiting for a reply he walked away down the street, scowling.  
  
XXX  
  
    A little while later, Emi Hidenaga answered a knock on her door. She gaped, eyes beaming with delight as she saw her son standing there.  
    Even though his weird friend was standing behind him.  
    “I thought you were with your father this week,” Emi gently pointed out.  
    “Dad found out I was a Kamen Rider,” Kensei explained. “He didn’t like the idea very much.”  
    She looked at him and nodded immediately. “No, he probably didn’t. I’m proud of you, Kensei-kun…”  
    “So is Yuuma.”  
    Before he even realized anything was happening Kensei was being yanked forcefully inside the house. Kiiko just barely had enough time to jump inside before Kensei’s mother slammed and locked the door. “YUUMA’S ALIVE?!” she demanded. An upstairs light flicked on next door from the noise of her outburst.  
    “Kind of, mom,” Kensei answered, rubbing out his ringing ears. “All the people who died playing Kamen Rider Chronicle…they aren’t really dead, they’re just trapped. Yuuma explained it to us.”  
    “You’d better explain everything you heard to me, Kensei-kun,” his mother said quietly, her voice slightly hoarse.  
    He nodded. “I will. If Kiiko can stay over tonight.”  
    “I don’t really need to stay here—” she tried to interrupt.  
    Emi looked her son in the eye, then over at his friend, who stuck out her lower lip and raised her shoulders in defiance.  
    “Fine. She can stay over tonight. But both of you are telling me everything about Yuuma and what he said,” she conceded.  
    “You really don’t have to do me a favor on this,” Kiiko whispered in Kensei’s ear.  
    “Why not? I don’t want you sleeping in the park.”  
    “No secrets,” Emi snapped. “I’ll go get the spare futon, then I’ll make some coffee. We’re going to be up for a while.”  
  
XXX  
  
    The nighttime lights of the city glinted off its black armor as it peered down over the streets and buildings.  
    It didn’t even know what the words would’ve meant.  
    Lights. Black. City.  
    A cloud of dark, flickering pixels curled through the sky toward it, then solidified over its dome-shaped head and formed into a crowd of people.  
    A biker with a black mohawk at least a foot tall. A pair of monks in sleeveless yellow gis. Two wearing maid café uniforms, black mini-dresses with lace trim around the skirt and tiny puffy sleeves. Each of them had a purple virus-shaped head.  
    None of those words would’ve meant anything to it. Biker. Monk. Waitress. It had no idea what they were imitating.  
    But it knew they were like itself. Parts of the same whole. Dedicated to the same goal of making a world for their kind. They stood basking in crackling waves of pixels that washed off its body, bathing in its power. Waiting for it, the strongest among them, to direct the others.  
    And it held up the objects in its hands again. Strange things. It didn’t know what “Night of Safari” or “Mighty Brothers XX” were, but it knew what the objects with their names represented.  
    Power. Great power.  
    Power it had managed to steal from their enemies. Power that they could no longer use to escape and threaten its kind again.  
    Power it would use to crush their successors.  
    “ **Mighty Brothers Double X!** ” the Gashat yelled as it hit the trigger button. A huge title screen showing two spike-headed Mightys under the name of the game, one orange and one blue-green, appeared over its head. Then it plugged the Gashat into a socket on its shoulder. Its body twitched and spasmed horribly from side to side for a few seconds as jagged bolts of energy jumped from where the Gashat was plugged in. The Corrupture Cells around it made no move to help. They knew this was beyond the likes of them.  
    And then on the edge of the rooftop, there were two dome-headed Corrupture, each with half of a mask with giant eyes and spiked hair on their shoulder  
  
XXX  
  
The spare futon hit the living room floor with a thump. Emi unrolled it slowly, listlessly. Her face was blank, all her usual energy gone. After she set it up, she went back upstairs and turned off her bedroom light.  
    As Kensei had explained his fight with Yuuma and then everything they’d learned from him—how the Corrupture were really the Kamen Rider Chronicle victims, how Yuuma and the other Riders’ loved ones had been trying to contain the chaos—the life seemed to drain out of her body. Her face had turned a shade of grey and her posture slumped more and more forward until she was resting her chin in her hands, her elbows balanced almost on her knees.  
    She’d stayed like that so long, ignoring any prompts from Kensei, that he’d taken Kiiko outside to give his mom some space.  
    “I hope I’m not getting kicked out of two houses in one night,” he muttered.  
    “I don’t think so,” Kiiko replied. “She looked upset, but she thought your brother was a hero, right? You just told her she was right. And he’s still alive. You’ll get him back.”  
     He smiled a little, and laughed a little. “I hope you’re right. It’s getting harder all the time…”  
    Kiiko shoved his shoulder playfully. “You’re not scared of one lame knockoff Rider, are you?”  
    Slowly he held up his hand. The one covered by the Mighty Hand. And closed it into a fist. It was shaking slightly, and patches of dark green skin were starting to peek out from the sides. “Maybe I am, a little,” he said, but smiled softly anyway. “Think about everything we’ve seen, Kiiko. It’s not stupid to be scared of that.”  
    She eyed him sideways. “The hero doesn’t get scared. He’s not allowed to. He goes out and fights so nobody else needs to fight.”  
    He looked at her, the twinkle fading from his eyes, but then looked out over the rooftops in front of his mother’s house. “What happens when that’s over, Kiiko?”  
    “…what do you mean?”  
    The actual surprise in her response made him chuckle again. She huffed and clenched her fists, but he managed to smile again before he explained himself. “I mean, tou-san’s right. I’m not going to just be Kamen Rider Utsura forever. At some point I’m going to need to start studying for something else.”  
    Kiiko huffed and thumped him on one shoulder with her fist. “No! You’re the hero! That’s the only thing that matters!”  
    “Isn’t the point of being the hero that eventually you’ll beat the villain and things will be nice again?” Kensei asked.  
    She had no reply.  
  
XXX  
  
    At school the next day Kensei kept an eye on the parade of girls giving away that Yoshoku was somewhere near. Every time, Yoshoku seemed to see him and tilted his head, eyebrows raised, seeming to wordlessly give Kensei the chance to make the first move.  
    Kensei didn’t, and when classes finally let out for the day and the students trickled into the streets, was surprised to see Yoshoku standing on the sidewalk, bag in hand.   
    “Let’s go,” he said immediately then turned around and started heading away from the school at an energetic walk. “It probably won’t take long for them to figure out I gave them the slip.”  
    “You gonna show us how to crack the whip on the developers?” Kensei asked as he fell into step behind Yoshoku.  
    For a second Yoshoku looked back over his shoulder. “No. I’ve been thinking, if we’re going to have two different groups to fight, we need a real place to meet.”  
    Kensei jogged up to his side, raising an eyebrow and giving a snort of amusement. “You? Really?”  
    That made Yoshoku look over at him again, narrowing his eyes in annoyance. “And why shouldn’t we do something like that?”  
    “It’s just…until now you weren’t really a ‘we’ kind of person,” Kensei said. He shook his head to dismiss the subject. “You have a place like that in mind?”  
    “Actually, yes. The tech at GENM told me about one right in the middle of town,” Yoshoku replied, then picked up his pace as he heard a collective feminine squeal behind him. “Hurry up or you’ll have to find it yourselves!”  
    Then he took off running. Kiiko and Kensei exchanged a confused look, and Kiiko shrugged her shoulders. They ran after him before they were trampled by his groupies.  
  
XXX  
  
    The two teens kept giving each other curious glances as they got into an elevator and Yoshoku hit a weird combination of buttons in shot succession: Basement, Basement, 1st floor, 1st floor, then Door Open and Door Close at the same time.  
    When it got to the bottom Kensei and Yoshoku had to pry the sliding doors open, but as soon as they did the entire room seemed to come back to life. Bright lights flicked on by themselves. As they climbed a staircase up to the second floor of the room, monitors turned on and immediately started playing a screensaver of a grey hexagon with a blue C on the inside forming itself out of triangles. Then the letters and the logo disassembled themselves and went spinning away into the blackness again. Underneath it were the letters CR.  
    The rest of the room Yoshoku led them into seemed abandoned. There was a meeting table in the middle of the little room, which had strange angular scorch marks and matching gouges cut into the plywood that seemed to make out the shape of a box. Maybe a briefcase? Kensei spotted something and looked up, and was a little disturbed to see a set of identical scorch marks in the ceiling. What had happened to make those?  
    Had it been the same thing that had made those weird purple marks on the walls? The ones with weird blocky edges that reminded him of the shapes of old video game graphics…?  
Around the edges were desks and lockers that had been cleaned out. Some of them even had empty drawers sticking out halfway. Strangely one corner had an alcove with an arcade cabinet in it: DoReMiFa Beat. Kensei saw Kiiko actually turn up her nose in disgust as she noticed the game too.  
    “Isn’t this the hospital where I got this put on?” Kensei asked, holding up the Mighty Hand. “Is that why they let us in?”  
    “No of course it isn’t,” Yoshoku said, sighing a little with exasperation. “This is where the old Kamen Riders had their headquarters. It’s closer to town, so we can meet here without having to go all the way out to the GENM building.”  
    “Wait a minute!” Kiiko said, and they both looked over at her. “Maybe if we search here we’ll find out what happened to them!”  
    With a snort of disbelief Yoshoku looked over at her. “You think nobody searched this place when the old Riders disappeared? They checked it top to bottom. If there was anything to find out, we would’ve been told already.”  
    “Let’s not change the subject,” Kensei interrupted. “You’re still the one inviting us to team up.”  
    Yoshoku raised his hand, pointing a finger at Kensei. He started to open his mouth when a door opened in the wall. Standing there was a middle-aged man with a bit of a careworn face. He had on a doctor’s smock over his shirt and slacks, and a silver briefcase in his hand. The name badge clipped to a pocket on his smock said “Haima Kagami.” And his expression was furious as he saw three teenagers standing around the meeting table. “What do you think you’re doing in here??” he demanded. “A bunch of kids never should’ve gotten down here!”  
    As if he hadn’t heard, Yoshoku pulled out a chair and sat down at the meeting table. The man angrily came over and slammed the case down on it before turning on Yoshoku, who didn’t look the least bit bothered. “Hidenaga, show him your belt,” he said simply.  
    “What?”  
    “Show him your belt,” Yoshoku just repeated. Uncertainly, Kensei took out his Gamer Driver and set it down on the meeting table, but kept his hand next to it so he could snatch it back right away if they were in trouble after all.  
    The doctor’s reaction was so intense the room actually seemed to shudder for a second, then he was grinning and his eyes beaming. Kiiko and Kensei jumped back in surprise, but Yoshoku didn’t even flinch. He’d probably been expecting exactly what was happening, hadn’t he?  
    “The new Kamen Riders?? It’s really you, isn’t it?” the man gushed, hopping around Kensei in small steps and staring at him with wide eyes, seeming to want to drink in every detail. “I wasn’t expecting such…young, vibrant people!”  
    Kensei stepped back away from the doctor, and Kiiko put a hand over her mouth to hide a snicker. Ignoring the spectacle completely, Yoshoku reached out, grabbed the briefcase and opened the clasps. “What are you doing?” Kensei asked, then noticed the box-shaped GENM CORP logo on the side of the case.  
    Inside resting in a block of cut foam were device that looked like Rider Gashats. They had the same plastic case made to be held in the grip of a persons hand and the labels of ones they all recognized from the collection screen that appeared whenever another one had been sent through the portal. Mighty Action X, Taddle Quest, DoReMiFa Beat, Jet Combat, and Drago Knight Hunter Z. The clear circuit board on the top was only about half as tall as usual, and the world CHIBI was engraved between the label and the circuit board.  
    “What the hell is going on?” Kensei demanded of Yoshoku.  
    “Ah!” Dr. Kagami replied instead, his eyes going so wide they seemed to bug out of his head. “Koboshi-san said you’d be coming over and sent these over for you! He said they were called Chibi Gashats, and they were kind of an early Christmas present.”  
    “Those more powerful Gashats they’ve been promising would be a better one,” Yoshoku mumbled.  
    Examining these other Gashats, Kensei curiously picked up the Mighty Action X one and hit the trigger button. Immediately a wireframe image about two feet tall appeared standing on the meeting table. When it had filled in with color he recognized it as Mighty, the main character from the popular platformer series. He turned to look at Kensei, gave the teen a thumbs up, then did an acrobatic flip in place.  
    “Awww, a real Mighty-chan for us!” Kiiko cooed. She snatched the cartridge from him, her eyes going wide, and tapped the trigger button a few more times to see what happened. Mighty-chan jumped down from the meeting table and ran in circles around the room, jumping on top of the rows of lockers and desks as he went, brandishing a pink, green and white mallet in his hand. Kensei watched for a few seconds but then spotted a note tucked into a groove on the inside of the case.  
    He picked it up as Dr. Kagami jumped backward in surprise when Mighty-chan was about to land on his head after jumping from a desk. “So these are…hologram spies, it says. If we put them in search mode they’ll look for Gashats.”  
    “They can find Gashats?” Yoshoku asked in reply, sitting up suddenly and giving Kensei a look of disbelief.  
    “Yes…,” Kensei said, reading on. “But they have to be very close. Still, that means we don’t have to just wait around for another Gahast to activate by itself then have to fight a ton of monsters for it.”  
     Giving a gasp of dismay, Kiiko thumped him on the shoulder with the bottom of the game. “Of course the hero has to fight all the monsters!” she chided him.  
    Another of the Gashats clicked, a yellow one in Yoshoku’s hands. Dr. Kagami’s face lit up again. “Ah! DoReMiFa Beat…that was the game our friend lived in!” he said.  
    A second wireframe model appeared on the meeting table. It was a miniature girl, with short pink hair, wearing a yellow and green dress, garish pink and green stockings. Kiiko made a noise of disgust. Everyone looked at her.  
    “We don’t need that one,” she said as the chibi girl started to twirl and dance across the table. Mighty jumped from a desk in the corner to the table again and watched the girl’s dance routine, canting his head (and with it his whole body) in curiosity.  
    “Poppy, isn’t it? Isn’t that her name I mean? Poppy…Pipo…something? I guess that makes her Poppy-chan,” Kensei asked.  
    Dr. Kagami was suddenly bending down and resting his hands on Kensei’s shoulders. “That was her name! She always worked so hard trying to help the Riders, even though she couldn’t fight…”  
    Ignoring the others Yoshoku glanced at the note in the case, and clicked the trigger button a few more times. Poppy-chan jumped down from the meeting table and went toward the stairs. The others looked over at him so Yoshoku explained. “I put her in search mode, like you said. Figured we might as well see how long it takes them to find something.”  
    But Poppy stopped at the stairs, looked back at them and waved for them to follow. The Riders and Kiiko exchanged unsure looks. “Did she find something already?” Kensei mumbled. He clicked the trigger button a few times to put Mighty-chan in search mode too, and he jumped down from the table and joined Poppy-chan. Mighty waved for them to join him too.  
    “Is there one this close?” Kensei asked.  
    “Or there’s one somewhere that’s already been activated,” Yoshoku suggested, pointing to the instructions.  
    Kensei looked at Kiiko a little nervously at what that meant, sure that Corsair would be there too. He got up, grabbing his Gamer Driver and went down the stairs after the two chibis.  
  
XXX  
  
    The scene they arrived at wasn’t the one they’d been expecting.  
    It was like the previous night: a group of people in related costumes with bright purple virus-shaped heads were running through a park raising havoc. A Corrupture Cell dressed in a blue wrestler’s singlet grabbed a salaryman in a cheap grey suit and threw him into a fountain. A pair of waitress Cells shot strands of lace from their hands that tied up a pair of schoolgirls, then advanced on them with oversized forks and knives.  
    Poppy-chan ran up in between the waitresses and their victims and held up her hand. The waitress Cells actually stopped, and she went into a twirl one the toes of one foot with her arms out at her sides. She shuffled backwards then, waving one arm up and one down in front of her as she did. The two Cells looked at each other as in confusion as Poppy-chan, and didn’t notice when Mighty-chan jumped up behind them and bopped them both over the head with his mallet.  
    The Cells fell down dazed while Kensei and Kiiko pulled off the lace tying up the two schoolgirls. Yoshoku charged up and went into a flying kick at the wrestler Cell, actually managing to knock the big bruiser down even if he did just spring back up.  
    “We have to hit them hard, or they just get back up. There’s something weird about these Corrupture,” Kensei stated.  
    “Who are you telling, me?” Yoshoku retorted, both of his Gashats already loaded into the side of his gun. “I already saw!” he said, then pulled the trigger.  
    As the Scorching Kitchen Gamer appeared from its screen above Yoshoku, Kensei swung open the lever on his Gamer Driver and the screen for Mighty Sketch appeared over him. Something was wrong about all this. Where were these Corruputure who could recover from most injuries coming from? Had Yuuma and the others been holding them back, and now they were spreading everywhere?  
    A pair of denim-clad biker Cells closed in on Utsura from both sides as his armor finished locking itself in place. He charged the one on his right, seeming to catch him by surprise with the way the Cell stopped and took a step back. As Utsura got close to strike, though, he lashed out with a baseball bat hammered full of nails. The Rider knocked the weapon away with the paintbrush mounted on his arm then raised his other hand, the one covered by a spray nozzle, and blasted a stream of paint into its face.  
    The Cell screeched and fell down clutching the bright green blotch on the virus that was its head. Behind him the other biker Cell lashed out with his spiked chain. A tentacle whipped out of Utsura’s backpack, and he hit the x5 button on his Mighty Hand before the tentacle fired a bullet of paint.  
It came out faster than any shot he’d ever fired with his Mighty Sketch weapons. The Cell was blown clear to the other side of the park and didn’t get back up after he landed. Utsura looked over and saw Sling shoot the pair of waitress Cells, who went down on top of each other. A third one appeared in a burst of pixels, spinning a serving tray on the tip of a huge knife, but Sling just pulled out a zucchini with a sparking stem, threw it at her feet and blew her into a row of bushes.  
“The little old Riders, still trying to pretend there’s a reason for them to be involved anymore,” said a sneering voice from the top of a small hill. Utsura whipped around, and wasn’t surprised at all to see the young man from the night before standing there. Just as he was unsurprised to see him put on a black visor with a two-toned MV logo on the front and insert a dark blue Rider Gashat into the side. “Henshin.”  
A wave of pixelated energy spread outward over his body. As it did three icons spun out around him and he hit one with his fist. The pixels kept spreading until they covered him in the pirate-like armor he’d worn before. He laughed, his shining cutlass already in his hand.  
Then he dashed past Utsura at lightning speed, plowing into a pair of Cells dressed up like chefs in bright red aprons. His sword went high and then cut through them both at an angle. The two of them immediately burst.  
Corsair sprinted off in another direction and slashed through the pair of waitress Cells that Sling had shot before who were getting to their feet, raised up like puppets on invisible strings. But Corsair’s blade cut through them easily and after a muffled pop they were gone too.  
Then without warning he turned and slashed at Sling next, sending the other Rider flying into the bushes. “Sorry!” Corsair laughed. “You had on an apron just like those other ones, how was I supposed to know?!”  
“Like hell you didn’t know that wasn’t a Corrupture,” Utsura called over at him. He started over to the bushes where Sling had landed, but suddenly Corsair was in his way.  
“Oh I’m sorry, did I make you mad?” he laughed again. “Here, I’ll give you a free shot!”  
“I don’t have any reason—” Utsura started to say, but Corsair closed the distance between them in seconds and slashed at his chest, biting into the Mighty logo on his armor. Utsura tried to raise his hand to fire back but Corsair was too fast. His sword flashed out again and knocked Utsura off his feet.  
Awkwardly, Utsura rolled into a somersault despite his bulky Level 3 armor. His shoulders hit the ground first and he landed on his back. He looked up to see Corsair standing over him, but with his sword balanced on his shoulder. “Not bad for such a pathetic level, I guess.”  
“What do you want?” Utsura asked, trying to keep fear out of his voice.  
    “To show our company has the best systems, of course,” Corsair replied.  
    “That’s all you’re here to do?” Utsura gasped. “Show off your powers?”  
    Corsair leaned back and laughed louder and more sarcastically than Utsura had ever heard in his life. “And you and your little friends are so different??” he jeered. “Oh yeah, I’ve seen you guys! Your little buddies were planning on using a monster attack to get famous!”  
    “And you’re so much smarter, sounds like you think,” Utsura said, hoping his attacker didn’t see the tentacles sliding silently out of his backpack.  
    “Sure! I don’t plan to stop, like you idiots!” Corsair laughed. Suddenly he stopped and gasped out instead, a sound Utsura barely heard over the sound of Sling’s gun going off. The other Rider was standing up out of the bushes, his gun smoking from the shot he’d just fired. Corsair whipped around to face him. “You’re gonna regret that, cowboy!” he snarled.  
He ran toward Sling, blocking another shot on the flat of his blade. Mighty-chan tried to jump in Corsair’s way, his colorful hammer held high, but Corsair slashed the Chibi Gamer with his sword and Mighty shattered.  
    Suddenly the tentacles in Utsura’s backpack dug into the ground and thrust out, pushing him back onto his feet. He jabbed the x10 button on the Mighty Hand and his body shook violently with the rush of power. The tentacles on his backpack stretched out and pushed him high into the air. He came down like a yellow and orange missile in front of Corsair, his Gashacon Tana in his hand before he even touched the ground.  
A huge explosion graphic with the word HIT! inside flashed out where their blades met. Utsura staggered back, his arms numbed for a second by the incredible power he’d channeled through his body.  
But to his surprise, Corsair staggered backward too, panting and sputtering.  
“Maybe we’re not so helpless,” Sling whispered.  
Then a flintlock pistol, its case bright green and its pin bright pink, appeared in Corsair’s other hand. “You think that’s my only trick?!” he yelled, voice shaking with rage and disgust.  
Then his gun roared louder than Sling’s ever had.  
  
XXX  
  
    The first thing Utsura realized he was seeing was a smoking hole in Sling’s chest armor.  
    Then the Gamer Pamaka dropped from his fingers and bounced a few times before it stopped moving. Sling slumped down on the ground next to it and clutched a hand to his wound, letting out a dry gasp.  
    Corsair switched targets, his gun pointed at Utsura’s head next. Its muzzle burst and Utsura fell back. Kiiko gasped from the far side of the park as Utsura’s beret spun over and over, a giant hole gaping through the top.  
    But before the beret hit the ground, Utsura suddenly sat up and stabbed Corsair in the stomach. He gasped, sounding more surprised than hurt, but it gave Utsura the second he needed to hit a button on his Mighty Hand.  
    A tentacle snaked out of his backpack and aimed the cannon on its end straight at Corsair’s chest. It fired a glowing paint ball that made Corsair gasp and raise his sword to block it. The paint exploded against the flat of the shining blade, coating it in a nauseating mix of green and purple and forcing him backward at incredible speed. Sparks flew from the Rider’s boots which left a pair of black trails across the ground.  
    Corsair bellowed in anger as he swung his sword, flinging off the paint coating the blade. “You’re annoying me, little boy,” he said. “I’ll show you what a mistake that was.”  
    “You started this!” Utsura retorted. Corsair’s only reply to that was a scream at the top of his lungs as his sword flashed out again like a beam of light. Utsura raised his sword to parry the attack but as their blades CLANGED off each other his arms were shaking from the strain of the Mighty Hand on his body. The cutlass swung out again and sent Utsura’s katana spinning out of his hands.  
    Again his sword was raised to attack. A tentacle raised out of Utsura’s backpack and grabbed Corsair’s wrist, and he struggled against it for a few seconds before yanking his arm free and pulling the end off the tentacle. A few sparking cables sagged out of the end as Corsair closed the few feet between them and delivered a vicious slash across Utsura’s chest, cutting right through the Mighty logo on his armor.  
    A scream froze in Kiiko’s throat, not even distracted by the massive HIT! graphic from Corsair’s attack. Another powerful slash from his sword connected with Utsura, who was knocked onto his back and rolled a few times before stopping. A metal tentacle raised weakly out of his backpack and pointed its nozzle at Corsair, firing a paint bullet but Corsair fired back with his pistol, shooting Utsura’s bullet out of the air. Then he fired again and blew the end off the tentacle.  
    The pirate-Rider aimed his pistol at Utsura’s head next. For second after second he held it there, seeming to dare Utsura to see if he was faster on the draw. Then Corsair tucked his weapon into his belt and stepped away.  
    Sling groaned and rolled onto his back. “What are you doing, you idiot?” he moaned. “You try to kill us, then you just stop?”  
    “To see if you think anybody believes you when you try to tell them,” Corsair said in a sneering voice.  
    He summoned his Cruiser and sailed away into the sky like before. Instead of focusing on his injuries, Utsura asked himself a question.  
    If Corsair had nothing to do with one of the missing original Gashats…then who did?  
  
XXX  
  
    After what seemed like forever Kensei and Yoshoku looked in the mirror and couldn’t find anymore open wounds they needed to clean and bandage. Yoshoku slumped into a chair at the CR meeting table and groaned again, clutching an aching cheek. “Well, that’s it,” he mumbled. “Unless they finally get off their asses and make their new Gashats for us we’re out of it.”  
    Kiiko whispered in Kensei’s ear, “I told you they were just gonna hold you back.” He smiled a little and pressed a fingertip to her lips, which only got Kiiko to give him a confused look.      
    “Maybe it isn’t a contest,” he suggested quietly.  
    “Of course it is,” Yoshoku retorted. “You really want a guy like him protecting people from Corrupture?”  
    Kensei chuckled. “No offense, but it wasn’t that long ago people might’ve said that about some of the other Kamen Riders.”  
    A sharp glare was Yoshoku’s reply. Kensei didn’t have long to worry about, though. Kiiko was pointing at one of the monitors, where the screensaver of the CR logo had been replaced by a picture of a ringing phone. “Kensei-kun…you have any idea what that means?” she asked him.  
    He didn’t, but he tried touching the screen, and immediately the ringing phone was replaced by a face. The face of Doku Dasao. As he saw all three of them looking back at him, Kensei and Yoshoku covered in bruises and bandages, he smiled a little sheepishly.  
    “Hey, guys. Looks like they were telling the truth at GENM, you really did get a for-real base,” he said quietly. “Maybe you’re wondering where I’ve been.”  
    The burning itch building up under the Mighty Hand was getting too intense to ignore so Kensei pressed a button. His body quivered and he let out a loud breath. “Is…your arm okay?” Doku asked.  
    “Not really,” Kensei answered, waving it off. “Where have you been, Doku? Is everything okay?”  
    Doku smiled a little, actually looking pleased. He held up a silver trophy with the GENM Corp. logo on it. “You might say I’ve been in training.”  
    The other teens looked at him to continue, so he explained, “I was doing this anyway, but I competed in the GENM National Play-Offs. Came second in the Knock Out Fighter Tournament,” Doku smiled, laughing weakly.  
    Yoshoku peered over his shoulder at the image. “So you’re done now, and you’re coming back?” he asked.  
    Nobody said anything for a minute. Then Doku smiled again, wider. “You almost sound like you miss me,” he said.  
    Kensei managed to get his shaking under control and smiled tiredly back. “Let’s just say we’ve got a lot to catch you up on. If you really do want to work with us when you get back.”  
    “I…I think so,” Doku said, managing to shake the hesitation out of his voice. “It’s what nee-san would’ve wanted.”  
    “Great!” Kensei smiled. Kiiko frowned.  
Yoshoku looked away. “You’ll have to show us your trophy, yeah? Guess we’ll need to find a place for it around here,” he said.  
    “You’re letting me into your base?” Doku asked.  
    “Better you than the other Rider we ran into today,” Yoshoku replied.  
    Doku smiled one last time. “I’ll look forward to hearing all about it. Hey, Merry Christmas, guys.”  
    “Merry Christmas,” Kensei said and Yoshoku actually echoed.  
    “What?” Kiiko asked. Everyone, even Doku, just gave her an amused look, and chuckled.  
“See you guys soon,” Doku nodded again, smiling in a subdued but hopeful way. Then the image faded out and the CR screensaver started cycling again.  
    Kensei smiled lightly as he slid into a chair at the meeting table himself. They had a powerful rival. There was no denying that.  
    But at least Kensei wouldn’t be facing them alone.  
  
 **See you next game…**


	16. Virus Stealing the Collection?

            The familiar neon signs of the seedy street had taken on their familiar blur, but he felt in his pocket and giggled to himself to still find a few bills there.

            He staggered along, trying to remember through his hazy mind which of his usual dives was on this particular street and which ones were the cheapest. Business hadn’t been its best lately, and cheap thrills were the best ones.

            Still, as he walked a strange feeling seemed  to pulse inside him and after a few minutes of trying his mind managed to break through the buzz he’d been building up all night to tell him his heart was beating faster. A fearful tingle went down his back as he realized it. Something was wrong, as if some kind of power was coming over him.

            Suddenly he was grabbed from behind and pulled into an alley. He dropped his battered briefcase and tried to let out a scream, but one of his captors put a heavy hand over his mouth. His heart was pounding even faster now, but that was just from terror. The air was starting to actually crackle around them as they turned him around and pulled him in deeper. Bright blue and purple sparks popped in the air every few seconds from something ahead. Sparks with weirdly square-shaped edges.

            As they pulled the man closer to whatever was sparking, the adrenaline release in his system was starting to fight off the influence of the alcohol and he could make out that the two people dragging him along seemed to have very large heads. Giant round heads, the shape of a watermelon on its side, with something sticking out of the top…

            Then he was dragged in front of the source of the sparks, and an orange glow started to surround it. The thing was the size and shape of a person, but with a shiny dome-like head that had a jagged-toothed metal jaw on the outside, and a weird knob or button near the top next to another fixture that looked like a wind-up key.

            There was a huge piece of dull metal armor covering its right shoulder and part of its chest, just above a cluster of large letters in different sizes: amAL.

            His blood seemed to go from pounding to freezing as the thing reached out for his head, the red glow around it focusing there. The man let out a scream as it touched him but a second later it died in his throat.

            All thoughts of finding a drink and a reason not to go home a little longer were washed out of his mind. All thoughts of going home at all were gone within a few short seconds. This was his home now, among the people who’d brought him here. Under the leadership of the dome-headed creature whose power was seeping into his body.

            When he stood up a second later he had a purple virus-shaped head, just like the two people standing at his sides.

            Not saying a word, they followed the other creature as it led the way into the darkness.

 

XXX

 

            “Why doesn’t it shoot?!”

            “Because it’s programmed to only shoot monsters, mom.”

            “Well those are monsters, aren’t they??”

            “ ‘Monster’ as in one from out of a video game that wants to take over the world, mom,” Kensei replied. “A real one.”

            The tiny fighter jet was hovering in their sliver of a backyard, its cannons aimed but silent at a row of crude paintings of purple ape-like aliens Mrs. Hidenaga had admitted weren’t her best work. Kensei had never seen _any_ art from her, but said nothing.

            He hadn’t even shut the door the other day before she’d come up and started spraying him with questions like machine-gun bullets about what he’d been out doing with Yoshoku. He’d made the mistake of being experimenting with one of the new Chibi Gamer Gashats they’d been given.

It was the one she was holding now, Jet Combat, but to Kensei’s relief, Jet Combatant as it was called, seemed as if they had indeed programmed it well enough to only attack a real, dangerous opponent. With everything that had been happening lately, though, he had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before it was put to the test.

“Help me figure out how to make this work!” his mother protested.

Kensei came over but privately, testing the Chibi Gamers was the last thing on his mind. What he was really trying to figure out was weird behavior even for his weird friend, Kiiko.

She’d been showing for school and happy to check up on the portable video games she’d been having him play for “training,” but after school ended for the last two days she seemed to disappear into thin air. Nobody he asked had seen her leaving, but then nobody else really wanted much to do with the hyperactive girl with no volume control.

He took the control Gashat from his mother and pressed the trigger button until he’d switched it to Search Mode. In response Jet Combatant fired its afterburners and took off over the houses behind them.

“What happened?!” Mrs. Hidenaga exclaimed. “Where’s it going??”

“It’s going out to find more of the games so we can bring the old Riders back.”

Emi looked like she was about to say something to that, but realized what he was saying and nodded slowly. “You have to save everyone, don’t you?” she asked. “Everyone else who died trying to fight the monsters…”

“It’ll be easier now, kaa-san,” Kensei said and put an arm around her shoulders. “It looks like I won’t have to do it alone anymore.”

 

XXX

 

            Power surged through cables and circuits. Needles jumped to the top of meters. Sparks flew dramatically and the technicians flinched back from the towering machines around them.

            And in the middle of it all lights came on in the eyes of a humanoid machine.

            Most aspects were similar to the armor worn by the Kamen Riders. It had a mask with huge eyes and a smooth plate for a mouth, but with a plain dome-like head. It had a silver-framed chestplate with space for icons and a health meter like theirs, but instead there was only a golden M logo with a silver V imposed over the middle of it on the left side, the rest a blank black. Its thin shoulder armor and gauntlets were also a dull silver, and bronze-colored stripes vaguely resembling circuit patterns ran up the side and legs of its black undersuit. Around its waist was a brown belt, with a square silver buckle showing the same golden M logo with a silver V imposed on the middle.

            “That’s the last of them, Shuugouteki-sama,” one the technicians said, wiping seat off his forehead.

            “Excellent,” said the man he was addressing. He seemed to tower over the technicians, and if he didn’t he would’ve stood out for miles in the laboratory The deep blue suit he was wearing that day cost more than the car the technician drove. His face was sleek, handsome, having an ageless quality that was hard to describe, making him look somewhat like a recent university graduate.

            All of that in spite of the sneering teenager following behind him, absently twirling the High Seas Scourge Gashat over his fingers.

            “Have the others been tested for performance?” the man in the suit asked.

            “Yes sir,” another technician answered as he pulled input cables off of the now-activated android. “Their capabilities match all the specs Maximum Inc. gave us. We only need to program your sons as an authority into this one and then all of them will follow their orders.”

            “I don’t need those,” the teen said, bored, as he twirled the Gashat again.

            “Suihei, until they figure out how to make those toys as powerful Hurricane Ninja again, you’re getting help _and liking it_ ,” the man replied.

            “Yes, sir.”

            He nodded, then turned away from both of them. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to address our public.”

            Without waiting for an answer he walked out of the lab and out into a brightly-lit hall covered in shiny white tile with darkened windows covering the walls and code locks on every door. His son fell into step behind him, still twirling his Gashat. The teen’s expression had turned into a scowl as he followed his father up to an elevator.

 

XXX

 

            When it stopped they stepped out into another hall, one with windows facing the outside of the building. A heavyset man with a short beard and mustache, wearing a black suit and mirrored sunglasses, was waiting for them. He immediately walked out behind them, until all three got to the cavernous, all-glass lobby of the building. A swarm of reporters were already waiting there holding up cameras and microphones, then snapped to attention as the suited man entered the room and walked up to a podium in front of a huge tile display worked into the back wall. On it was a golden M logo with a silver V imposed in the middle, above the name Machina Vision in gold letters.

            He smiled and waved to the reporters for a minute, letting them get a few of the shots they wanted for their outlets. Then he rested his hands on the podium and his expression turned serious. “People of Japan, my name is Ayatsu Shuugetouki. Some of you may know I have taken over operations of Machina Vision after the deplorable incident caused by my predecessor.  I _need_ to make it known that I feel personally shamed knowing that the company I dedicated myself to could be in any way responsible for such dealings, and that with a second outbreak of game-related menaces, I have dedicated this company’s resources to ensuring the safety of the Japanese people.”

            He settled back on his heels, his face somber but his eyes scanning the reporters, making eye contact with each of them. One man in a cheap grey suit held up his microphone for recognition and asked, “Shuutougeki-san, surely you have something prepared to show us what you have in mind. These monsters…the Corrupture? These monsters have powers that Bugsters did not. What if they only keep getting more powerful? What do you have that can compare to something like that?”

            Ayatsu smiled knowingly at the question. “We have indeed prepared something _very_ special to deal with a problem this serious. These Corrupture can appear seemingly anywhere without warning. They are, after all, manifestations of a disease. We have the best minds available, using the finest technology, to create our countermeasure to their outbreaks.”

            That seemed to be Suihei’s cue, as he stepped forward and triggered High Seas Scourge. “ **Swashbuckling Level 30!** ”

            “ **Henshin** ,” he said, sliding on a shiny black visor with Machina Vision’s logo in the middle, and slapping High Seas Scourge into the side.

“ **High Seas Scourge! Plunder the riches! Plunder the wenches! Rule the Oceans!** ” Waves of power that looked like actual waves of water spread from the visor, covering it and the rest of Suihei. The visor was replaced by a pair of huge eyes with wide goggles to make room for his visor, as his body was covered in Kamen Rider Corsair’s blue and red armor. A wide-brimmed had with a comedically long plume sticking out spun through the air, making some of the reporters duck as it whizzed by, then landed gently on Corsair’s head.

“…a Kamen Rider?” one of the reporters asked in faint disbelief. “Haven’t your competitors already unveiled a new line of their own?”

Ayatsu smiled and nodded, having no doubt expected the question. “They have, but Machina Vision’s new system is revolutionary. It enhances senses to a degree even greater than that allowed by GENM’s driver technology. More than that, we have perfected the technique of modular implementation.”

“Modular implementation?” asked a reporter. “Is that something you’re free to discuss yet?”

“Absolutely!” Ayatsu said, putting on his mot photogenic smile. “Modular implementation is a new concept we’ve been perfecting that allows us to develop a Gashat for one of our Kamen Riders, and then develop new content that will give them new weapons and abilities. This serves to make one Gashat more powerful step-by-step, rather than constantly introducing new ones with higher levels, while still allowing the Rider to gain new abilities and remain formidable even if their enemies also develop new abilities.

“In addition,” he went on, “we have taken into consideration the need for reliable _support_ for a combatant. Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll please stand back.” Ayatsu snapped his fingers, and three of the masked androids like the one they’d just activated in the basement strode through a door in perfect synch. “Our Auto Players. Machines created to help a player triumph in real games of combat and conquest.”

“What…exactly do they do?”

Almost as soon as the question was raised, a sharping ringing came from Ayatsu’s jacket. He pulled a shining red smartphone out of his jacket, then smiled faintly. “Ladies and gentlemen, another fine innovation from Machine Vision: the Corrupture Alert phone app. Perhaps we can give you a live demonstration of our new hardware!”

            Corsair cut the air a few times with his cutlass and laughed.

 

XXX

 

            As he walked back home carrying a bag full of ingredients for supper, Kensei got the answer to the question that had been bothering him the last few days as he walked past the clear glass doors of a Big Bang Burger.

            The waitress, clad in a yellow blouse, red skirt and visor both with orange stars, didn’t stand out at all in the bright colors of the restaurant. She might not, that is, if she’d been delivering food like anyone would’ve expected. Instead she was leaning over and cheering on a kid playing an arcade game in the back as a bunch of other kids watched, seeming amazed at a teenage girl getting so involved in a kid’s attempt at a game.

            “Hey kid, no outside food!” a pudgy, stubble-faced manager yelled at him as he came in. Kensei didn’t even hear him, heading straight to the crowd of kids around the pair of arcade cabinets in the back. One was named Tuna Diver and had an OUT OF ORDER sign over the screen. The other game, Astro Chicken, was his real destination, what with who was standing in the middle of the crowd of kids next to it.

            One of them looked up at Kensei as he came in, spotted the bag of groceries in his hand and asked, almost hopefully, “Hey mister, do you work here?”

            “No, but I know your friend here,” Kensei replied, and saying that got the waitress’s attention.

            “Kensei-kun!” she gasped, an open-mouthed look of shock on her face. “I’m…coaching this boy on how to improve his score!”

            “Looks like that’s not all you’re doing, Kiiko,” Kensei observed. “I didn’t realize you needed an after school job.”

            The kids took advantage of the break in Kiiko’s attention to scatter, except for the boy playing the game who managed to bring in another Astro Chicken on the landing to a victorious “BA-GAWK!” The score display on the top started flashing, which Kensei guessed meant the kid was on a roll. The kid was grinning like a maniac.

            Kiiko shrugged and turned to face Kensei instead. “I don’t really need money, you know that already.” Kensei nodded. “But I thought a little about what you said last time, about what happens after you beat the Corruputure.”

            “So you got a job at a fast food restaurant.”

            “Yeah!” Kiiko said, sounding proud. “To know what it’s like!”

            “I...hmmm, wow. I’m kind of impressed the first thing you thought when you heard that was to go out and get a job, Kiiko,” Kensei admitted, which got a grin out of her. “I mean, that’s definitely one way to see what life is like.”

            “MISHIRANU!” the manager yelled. “Your break’s over already! And like I told you before, no outside food!”

            Kensei looked over at the manger, then whispered, “Maybe I’ll be eating outside food in general from now on…”

            “Don’t say that!” Kiiko patted him on the shoulder. “You know we have this challenge where if you eat our biggest burgers in sitting you get a prize.”

            “A prize?”

            “Yeah! They’re really cool!”

            “Maybe I will,” Kensei smiled lightly. “Right now—”

            Right then this phone started to buzz, and on the screen was the familiar GENM symbol. “Uh, right now I need to go deal with this. Hold onto these for me until I get back, okay?” he said and thrust the bag of groceries into Kiiko’s arms. Then he took off running out the door.

 

XXX

 

            He didn’t need to go far to see what they wanted to warn him about. A Corrupture was stumbling down the street, one who had a black, dome-shaped head with a large grey bolt on the left side where an eye would’ve been, and another metal shape like a wind-up key sticking form its head. Along the bottom was a grey extension like a jaw, covered in jagged, uneven teeth.

            His body was also black, but covered in uneven patches of a dull silver armor. One large plate covered its right shoulder, just above writing on its chest, letters spelling AMAL. There was another grey plate on his left bicep, on his right forearm and hip, and left shin. Next to all of them were written the same letters, in different series of punctuation. AmAL. aMal. AMal. AmAl.

            Was that what he was called? Amal?

As soon as he noticed the En En Chambara Gashat in Kensei’s hand, he turned and ran away down the street.

            “Henshin,” Kensei said and slid En En Chambara into its slot on his Gamer Driver. Before the samurai armor completing his change to Kamen Rider Utsura had even attached itself he called up his inventory and his the icon to summon his Cruiser and in another second was riding after the Amal Corrupture on his empty horse’s armor. He knew he should probably be stopping the monster, but the Corruputure seemed to be going somewhere and he had a feeling he needed to know where that was.

            Just a minute later he seemed to find it, coming to a wide plaza where a group of of Corrupture Cells in all kinds of other wild costumes had gathered. Leaning forward in the saddle, Utsura saw someone all the lesser Corrupture seemed to be dancing around with their arms held high in the air, the monsters wearing a crazy array of costumes. One had on a black suit and an assault rifle in his hand, and amazingly had sunglasses perched on the front of his purple virus-head. One had on stained overalls, beat-up work gloves and a wide straw hat like a gardener, holding a long rake. One Cell was dressed up in a bright pink mini-dress with sparkly white stockings and elbow gloves, and seven-inch high heels.

            The Corrupture Cells parted as they saw the Amal Corrupture coming, Then he turned his featureless head and seemed to stare right at Utsura. And he lifted up his hand, and in his fingers was a Rider Gashat.

            Straining his eyes Utsura could make out the label of the dark blue cartridge: Bang Bang Tank.

The dome-faced Corruputure hit the trigger button then pressed the Gashat into a slot on the armor on his bicep. His body shook back and forth with a horrible spasm, arcs of energy spreading over it from its shoulder like a web. Then he levitated up into the air, and a huge wireframe shape appeared around him.

A dark blue tank.

Then the tank suddenly solidified, and rolled down the street in Utsura’s direction.

 

XXX

 

            The tank’s cannon roared and Utsura jumped off the saddle of his horse-Cruiser just before a shell blew it into pixelated chunks.

            As soon as his boots hit the ground Utsura whipped out Mighty Sketch and slid it into the Gamer Driver. The familiar stubby orange robot appeared above him from its title screen and broke apart into his extra armor just as he saw the tank’s cannon rotating to face him again. The tentacle with his paint cannon slipped out of his backpack and fired, buffeting the cannon just a few inches upward and making the shell skim by barely a foot from his head.

            When it exploded behind him Utsura was already moving, trying to spot a vulnerable spot in the vehicle’s armor. Amal Corrupture looked down at him from the top of the tank that seemed analytical in some way despite his totally blank face. Deciding to go for the obvious target Utsura aimed the spray nozzle over his hand up at the Corruture’s head.

The stream of bright colors slammed into the Corrupture’s head and knocked him backward, then as he recovered and looked back down at Ustura the paint simply sizzled off his skin. The cannon swung around to face Utsura again and he went diving out of the way as it fired, tearing the side of the building behind him open in a blast of fire and chips of concrete.

The Corrupture Cells behind had gone completely silent as their leader in the tank aimed at Utsura again. The Rider dashed around the tank, putting him in front of the Cells behind it. As he blasted the back of the tank’s armor with his paint cannon, the top swiveled around, aimed at the Rider, and fired.

Utsura threw himself out of the way, landing roughly on his stomach. The shell exploded behind him, and ten or so Corrupture Cells disappeared in a puff of pixels, floating away into the sky as they always did after being defeated.

None of the rest of the Cells moved or reacted at all to their leader blowing away so many of their own kind. Behind his mask, Utsura’s mouth hung open in disbelief. Was that how lesser Corrupture reacted? Just accepting a violent fate, even by their own leader?

Then he heard a sound like a cross between a whistle and a scream, and jumped as high as he could before tentacles slid out of his backpack and grabbed the edge of a rooftop and hauled him up. Right before a huge silver cannonball lobbed through the air and landed right in the middle of the Corrupture Cells, then exploded hot enough to scorch Utsura’s armor on top of a three-story building. He fell on his back clutching his goggles, and for a few seconds his eyes showed nothing but white.

When he could see again after another minute, he wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Corsair flying by on his small galleon, but on the deck he had a group of five silver-armored guys with giant eyes in their masks like a Kamen Rider’s.

Corsair turned to look down at him. “The pros are here to take over!” he called down and laughed. Utsura looked down to survey the damage, noticing only maybe a third of the crowd of Corrupture Cells he’d first seen starting to pick themselves up off the ground. The rest must’ve been blown up by the cannonball, and were floating into the sky in a thick haze back up to their home portal.

The back half of the tank was missing too, the missing edged marked with blocky torn shapes. Amal himself was lying on the ground, still in one piece. The ship landed and Corsair’s group of masked assistants jumped down. Utsura climbed back down to the street too with the four metal tendrils extended out of his armor’s backpack.

“Auto Players, handle the others,” Corsair said. His group of assistants nodded once then spread out, wireframes of long, wavy-bladed sword-like weapons appearing in their hands. They spread out as the Cells were getting to their feet. The gardener one was one of the first to recover and swung his rake at an Auto Player coming to attack him. Some Cells pulled guns and fired at the Auto Players, the bullets ricocheting off their armor.

Utsura looked the other way to see what Amal was up to, afraid he might have a much more dangerous trick up his sleeve. As Corsair closed in on him, overdramatically slashing his shining sword through the air a few times, Amal held up another Rider Gashat, this one a tan color. He hit the trigger button and plugged it into a socket on the back of his arm as it yelled “ **Night of SAFARI!** ”

Three-inch-long claws formed on the tips of Amal’s fingers and then on the toe part of each boot. Dull bronze-colored leopard spots popped up on his chest and stomach. His jaw grew a row of fangs and incredibly, a tall yellow Mohawk with dark spots sprouted from this dome-head.

Then he snarled and pounced at the two Kamen Riders.

 

XXX  


On the restaurant’s TV, Kiiko saw Amal tackle Utsura and Corsair at the same time, pinning Utsura and tearing into the armor on his chest with long claws.

Corsair rolled and got to his feet, then charged over and swung his sword, knocking Amal off with a powerful strike. But the Corrupture landed on all fours like a cat. Behind Corsair, Utsura got up but was clutching his chest and limping as he moved to his left and tried to line up a shot on Amal with his paint cannon.

As soon as his paint cannon had slithered out of his backpack, though, Amal jumped over the Riders’ heads, arcing himself like a predatory cat. He slashed at their faces with his feet as he went past, and Corsair dodged, only losing the tip to the plume in his hat, but the claws raked over Utsura’s goggles, sending shards of dark glass flying.

A few parents gasped at the sight, a bunch of their kids yelled “COOL!”

“NO, it’s not!” Kiiko yelled over all of them. “The hero’s getting hurt, you think that’s cool?!”

No one in the restaurant said anything for a cold minute, then all of the kids watching the fight laughed loud enough to shake the windows.

“Are you dumb, lady?!” one boy asked. He pointed at Corsair on the TV. “That’s the hero! He looks way cooler! And he has a big awesome sword! That other guy has to be the one who gets beat up so the enemy seems strong!”

“Yeah, don’t you know anything, lady??” another boy jeered.

“Shush,” his mother cut him off. “This isn’t one of your TV shows! This is really happening.”

Kiiko looked away, if just to hide the shock on her face at such a remark. Was that all that mattered to people watching a life-or-death fight? Who had the most impressive powers, the coolest-looking weapons? Not who was actually fighting to protect the world?

            She wanted to run over there, she wanted to help, even though she knew she couldn’t. Her power was only to guide, it wouldn’t help when the only goal was surviving a fight.

But Kensei was her friend, and he was slow in peeling himself off the ground and clutching his devastated mask.

            He was the hero, though. She’d trusted in that ever since she’d met him.

            She knew she was just going to have to keep trusting in that.

 

XXX

 

            The graphics of his enhanced display were covered in static as Utsura got up, and he could see the actual street through holes punched in his mask.

            Somewhere off in the distance he heard a clang like Corsair’s cutlass and hoped that meant Amal was distracted for a little while. One of his backpack’s tentacles popped out and grabbed a streetlight to yank him back up.

            He pulled his hand away from his damaged mask just in time to see Amal ducked under Corsair’s slash and come charging at Utsura himself on all fours. Gasping in fear, Utsura hit the x10 button on his Mighty Hand. He aimed his paint cannon and fired a gigantic sizzling shell, his entire body quivering painfully from the power surge he’d just filled himself with. Was using the Mighty Hand wearing out his body already?

            His shot caught Amal right in the head, dyeing the Corrupture’s mohawk bright pink and coating the rest of his body in a nauseating swirl of neon colors. Amal fell flat for a second, then dug in his feet and came charging at Utsura again.

            Before he was about to tackle the dazed Rider, an eggplant with a lite fuse for a stem landed on the ground underneath him and exploded. Amal landed and made a pained rattling noise.

            Utsura looked over and through the static of his damaged mask, and sighed in relief as he recognized the figure in a red apron and chef’s hat running down the street. “Can’t handle things for five minutes by yourself, can you, Hidenaga?” Sling asked after he was close enough.

            Immediately Amal was back on his feet, raking his claws against each other and sending sparks jumping off them. Corsair came running up behind him, already aiming his flintlock pistol with his other hand.

            Surrounded, Amal took out another Rider Gashat. This one had two panels instead of one, and its case was bright blue-green on one side, and orange on the other. He hit the trigger button, and the response was a fierce “ **Mighty Brothers Double X!** ” Then he plugged it into a socket on his arm.  His body shook fiercely as bolts of energy covered it like before, then it _rippled_ , then split in two.

            One had turned orange, the previously grey armor plates on his body now blue-green. He had spiky orange hair parted hard to the right, along with the claws and spots of a leopard as the Night of Safari Gashat was plugged into him.

            The other Amal copy was blue-green, the plates on his armor orange. He had spiky hair parted hard to the left. He had dark blue armor plating covering each arm and a cannon barrel over his hands.

            Orange Amal growled and pounced Utsura and Sling. Blue Amal turned to face Corsair and fired giant shells from both of his arms at the pirate Rider. Corsair gasped in surprise and back-flipped out of the way then aimed and fired back with his pistol, but Blue Amal turned and the shot exploded harmlessly against the armor on his shoulder.

            Utsura and sling were knocked down hard and rolled with the impact to get some space between themselves and Orange Amal. Both sat up with guns aimed at the Corrupture, Utsura spraying a stream of paint and Sling firing off a high-pressure stream of honey. They slammed into Orange Amal with a noise like thunder, knocking him on his back and driving him across the ground.

            Then he held up his hands in front of their shots and a blocky image of a leopard jumped out of his fingertips and scratched back at the Riders’ attacks. The cat batted them away and then charged through them, exploding when it was between the two Kamen Riders and blowing them into walls on the other sides of the street. Orange Amal dropped to all fours and started to charge, and Utsura desperately hit the trigger buttons on two of the Chibi Gashats: Jet Combat and Taddle Quest.

            Immediately the small fighter jet he’d been showing to his mother appeared and buzzed Orange Amal, firing its cannons repeatedly at the Corrupture but the tiny bullets only irritating and distracting the orange monster into taking swipes at the Chibi Gamer as it flew past. But at Utsura’s feet appeared a super-deformed knight, the Brave Knight, who ran up to Orange Amal and hacked at one shin with his adorable flaming sword. Orange Amal jumped on his other foot in pain, and the knight charged over, his blade covering over with frost, then hit that shin and instantly a thin shell of ice formed over it.

            “No monster ever hit us that hard,” Sling groaned. “Not even my mom…what do we do?”

            “You’re asking _me_?” Utsura replied in disbelief.

            “Teaming up was your idea, of course we’re going to ask you for a plan.”

            “…I don’t know,” Kensei admitted. “Even the Mighty Hand didn’t do much, and that was before he powered up and cloned himself.” He didn’t add that he was wondering if the Mighty Hand’s full output was getting to be more than he could take.

            As Orange Amal swatted at the two Chibi Gamers, behind him they could see Corsair taking a tank shell from Blue Amal right on the chest. He yelled out in pain and dropped his sword, but shot back with his pistol and the bullet hit another shell just as it was leaving Blue Amal’s barrel. His cannon-hand cracked and fell off.

            Orange Amal growled then and knocked the fighter jet out of the air and got down on all fours and smashed the Brave Knight next, who went flying out of sight, leaving a trail of pixels in the air behind him. The Corrupture seemed to stare menacingly at them from down the street, even with no eyes.

            Arm shaking, Utsura reached up for the buttons on the Mighty Hand with the spray nozzle on his other hand. The Corrupture threw himself at down the street like a missile, smashing clawed footprints into the ground. Utsura hit the x10 button and then sprayed a screen of sizzling paint across the street and he and Sling scattered. Orange Amal crashed through the screen of paint but his targets were out of the way and his skin crackled with the swirl of paint covering him until he brushed it off, his claws digging gouges into his skin he didn’t even seem to notice.

            “What do we do?” Sling asked again, aiming his gun at Orange Amal and loading a jar into the back.

            “How about say something like, ‘boy am I glad to see you, buddy’?” someone called. The two Riders looked back to where it came from, and there, purple robe flapping out behind him as he rode down on a huge ostrich-lie bird, was Kamen Rider Rune. His staff was slung around his back, which was unusual, and in one hand he held the bird’s reins, but in the other one he was holding a light blue Rider Gashat.

            “Where’ve you been the whole time we were getting our tails kicked?” Sling asked.

            “Where’ve _you_ been?” Rune retorted. “GENM said they tried to call Hidenaga like fifteen times to tell him his new Gashat was ready!”

            “The call wasn’t about him?” Utsura asked, pointing at Amal. With a chortle, Rune just stopped his bird and tossed the Gashat in his hand to Utsura, who reached up and caught it.

            Sling looked over at him. “You’re just giving that to us?” he asked, a disbelieving edge in his voice.

”Yeah, well, I may not be up to this by myself after all. And at least I can stand the two of you,” Rune replied, jerking his head over to where Corsair was locked in hand-to-hand combat with Blue Amal, having lost both of his weapons during the fight. His punches and chops left tiny dents in the heavy armor covering Blue Amal’s chest, but the Corrupture just seemed to be standing there taking it without making a sound.

“And that game’s not really my style anyway. Figure I’ll let Hidenaga try it instead,” Rune concluded

Utsura turned over the Gashat he’d just gotten. The label showed a man in baggy white robes with a wide straw hat, pulling a huge fish out of a river with a black pole engraved with a golden image of a coiling, serpentine dragon. The logo on the top called it River Harmony. He’d heard about this game but hadn’t played it: the player controlled a wandering sage and fishing master who was trying to help the people of a dying village reinvigorate it without letting a greedy developer claim the land for himself.

A roar from Orange Amal recovering was all the convincing Utsura needed to try out the new game. The circuit panel on the top was clear instead of white, meaning it was a primary form Gashat. A little unsure of what he was doing, Utsura pulled out En En Chambara and Mighty Sketch with his belt sighing “gashuuun”. Then he hit the trigger button.

“ **River Harmony! Angling Level 30!** ” it said, then followed with a sound like rushing water. “ **Save the lands! Master the cast! Haul in the GODFISH!!!** ”  

            “ ‘Haul in the Godfish’ ??” Sling asked and shook his head in disbelief. The game’s title screen appeared over Utsura’s head as his Mighty Sketch armor peeled away, showing the image of the robed man dragging a fish out of the water. A round floating shape came out of it, the River Gamer. It spun through the air between Utsura and Orange Amal as the Corrupture started to charge, stopping him for a second, then hovered over Utsura and dropped an assortment of armor pieces out onto him.

            A blue vest with thick shoulder pads and a bar across the front, decorated with a yin-yang symbol, dropped out first and attached to his chest, covering his health bar display. A blue glove fell over his right hand. The last piece was a wide, pointed hat that dropped onto his head, and then strands of long anime hair stuck out over his forehead and in front of his eyes. The enhanced power of his new form crawled over his suit, even repairing the damage to his mask Amal had done to it.

            His change complete, Utsura called up a ring of icons and touched one, pulling his hand back with a short wide rode with a pair of round buttons built into the top, a green one inscribed A and a pink one marked B. “ **Gashacon Catcher!** ”

“…this is my weapon??” he exclaimed.

            Then Orange Amal roared and lunged at him, which Utsura sidestepped with a speed he wasn’t expecting to have, the Corrupture monster seeming to slow down as Utsura stepped out of the way. He pressed the B button and a long pole extended out from both sides of the Catcher. One side had a thick metal hook dangling on the end of a black cord.

            But as Orange Amal landed and turned around, he had an idea of how to use it already. The cat-like monster circled around him then lunged for Utsura’s unprotected side. As he came closer he seemed to slow down a little, the light even catching on the side of its metal claws and flaring dramatically. Utsura swung the extended Catcher like a staff, catching Orange Amal in the stomach with a powerful blow that stopped his charge cold.

            Before his enemy had a chance to recover Utsura spun around, the hook on the end of his Catcher shooting out on its cord. It looped itself around his shoulder and Utsura pulled back on his weapon, yanking Orange Amal into the air.

            The surprised kaijin slashed at the Catcher’s line with his claws but Utsura swung him hard, slamming him face-down into the street. Then Utsura yanked back on his weapon and pulled Orange Amal up again before bashing him into the side of a building. One more time Utsura pulled his opponent up, whirled him around a few times, then shook his line loose and let the Corrupture go spinning away into the crowd of Cells behind them, knocking down a few along with one of the Auto Players who’d been about to attack them.

            Not surprisingly Amal recovered first, but didn’t charge again. His hands glowed and then around him a swarm of transparent leopards appeared and jumped at Ustura instead, snarling and claws out.

            He planted his feet and then with  supernatural precision swung the Catcher like a staff, knocking the first attacking cat aside and into the one next to it. They screeched in surprise as they collided and exploded into transparent blocks.

            As the next two big cats came lunging for him Utsura planted the bottom of the Catcher on the ground and used it to vault over them. As he came down he extended one foot and kicked Orange Amal in the chest for all he was worth. The Corrupture fell back and went into a somersault. He came slashing at Utsura with his claws but the Rider blocked his fingers on the Catcher, knocked Orange Amal off the ground with a powerful knee-strike to the stomach swatted him into a group of Cells coming to help their leader.

           

XXX

 

            At the same time Blue Amal slid his remaining cannon-barrel hand out of Corsair’s grip and fired it point-black into the Rider’s chest. Corsair _growled_ from the pain even though he now had a huge burn mark on the front of his armor from the blast. He looked back for where his weapons had landed as Blue Amal aimed another shot—

            Then another shot hit him in the back of the head, Blue Amal’s blank dome jerking forward a few inches. He turned around to face his attackers, then slipped and stumbled on the stream of butter landing on his feet.

            Sling tossed the spent jar over his shoulder and fired a regular bullet from his Pamaka at Blue Amal’s cannon. He twisted out of the way and it skimmed his arm instead, only for a fireball to explode against his shoulder, then another fireball, and then a third that knocked him on his back. Rune lowered his smoking staff.

            Realizing he had an opening Corsair dashed over to where his flintlock landed and grabbed it. He whipped around with the momentum of his run and fired a shot at the fallen Corrupture that blew him into a tree.

            “You’re dead,” he growled, and the barrel of his flintlock glowed as he tightened his grip on the trigger.

            Suddenly Blue Amal reached up and pulled the Mighty Brothers Gashat out of its sucket. His body dissolved into a cloud of pixels that flowed across the area and engulfed Orange Amal, whose armor flickered back to black. The faceless monster looked back at Utsura, and the other Riders in front of him and Corsair’s gun aimed at his blank face. Then he simply disappeared in a black and purple haze. Corsair’s gun fired and went right through hitting nothing.

            The pirate Rider cursed under his breath and turned away. He looked back over his shoulder at Sling and Rune, then over to where his back-up had been fighting Corrupture Cells.

            A few were still left, the Auto Players chasing them into a corner, but they were looking where Amal had just disappeared and started screeching in what sounded like fear. They started to dissolve into clouds of pixels into the sky.

            As they did, two Auto Players had time to gang up on one Cell near the edge of the group, one dressed like a chef with a red apron, and knocked him down a punishing attack from both of their swords. He went down hard, and just before he disappeared, the virus-shape on his head was the first thing to peel away.

            Underneath was the face of a middle-aged man, frozen in fear.

            Then his body had dissolved into pixels and was floating away with all the rest.

            “You guys saw that too, right?” Rune whispered to Sling and Utsura. First Utsura nodded, and a second later Sling did too.

            As soon as the Corrupture had completely retreated Corsair called up his pirate ship and climbed onto it to take the wheel. The Auto Players who’d come with him vaulted the rails and stepped onto the deck in a V-formation in perfect unison. The ship lifted into the air, and as it did Corsair looked down and locked gigantic eyes with Utsura.

            “You look like an idiot in that form,” he said.

            “Power’s power,” Utsura replied, trying to keep annoyed defiance out of his voice.

            “We’ll see who’s really got that soon,” Corsair said. Sling’s hand went to the gun in his holster, but Utsura put his hand on Sling’s wrist to stop him.

And the ship flew away between the skyscrapers.

           

            **See you next Game…**

 

XXX

 

**Well here we are, another chapter down, another year upon us, and the first of a new round of upgrades to help make things a little easier on the New GENM Riders. They’ve got some pretty tough new enemies they’re going to need every bit of help they can get to stand up to. I personally like the idea of the Amal Corrupture. Villains with collections of powers, like Amazo or the Super Adaptiod, have always seemed really cool to me.**

**My choice for Utsura’s new game probably seems kind of weird. I had originally thought about a pinball game as his upgrade, but that seemed like a gimmick that wouldn’t be usable for very long. Instead I got to thinking about other obscure game genres and thought about fishing games, then about Sentai that had guys with a fishing pole as their main weapon. There was one in Dairanger, one in Abaranger, and of course ZA WOLDO had one.  As I was writing this the Christmas episode of Lupinranger VS Patranger aired, giving us yet another one.**

**That seemed like a fun thing to play around with, and so we have River Harmony. In my head it’s kind of a mix of the old River King RPGs with community development aspects from some of the Harvest Moon titles. Complete with hamfisted moralizing about how nature is good and big corporations are all totally evil. Looking forward to playing around with the possibilities.**

**Happy New Year, everyone!**


	17. Trading and Pop

**Hey! In case you didn’t see it, the KR Utsura “movie,” _52 Assaults_ , is finally done! Go ahead and check it out! Or don’t, I’ll do my best to give you something cool right here!**

 

XXX

 

            The only sound in the CR room was the chirpy, forgettable pop song coming from the DoReMiFa Beat cabinet in the side room. Doku slapped the buttons to match the musical notes flying in from the edges of the screen, while a cartoon image of a pink-haired lady in a gaudy multicolored dress danced back and forth.

            Yoshoku leaned his chair way back until the top touched the metal railing behind him, then let it drop forward again with a bang and making Doku miss the next signal. He shot a dirty look over his shoulder at Yoshoku, making him miss another signal.

            “Do you have to keep doing that?” Doku demanded.

            “There’s nothing else to do,” Yoshoku replied. “Besides play that dumb game.”

            “You could’ve _brought_ something to do,” Doku countered. “And playing the games’ll help you learn more about surviving fighting the Corrupture.”

            Yoshoku shook his head. “Thank you for telling me something so painfully obvious. And a music game’s supposed to help us get better at fighting monsters?”

            Doku stepped away from the game. “What do you think’s taking so long?” he asked, the irritation fading from his voice.

            “You know way more about game poisons and germs and stuff than me,” Yoshoku shrugged his shoulders.

            Doku shook his head and stepped back into the main room. He ran his finger over a Gashat-shaped scorch mark on the meeting table that still wouldn’t smudge out. What had _happened_ there to make that? “I guess I do,” he replied after another minute, still looking down at the burn mark. “But usually you just sleep or wave an herb over it or something and it goes away. I don’t remember ever seeing an item like that out there.”

            “Maybe we just haven’t seen it yet,” Yoshoku said quietly.

            “If there is one we better see it soon,” Doku replied.

            Then they both looked up as the screen saver on the main monitor of the CR logo forming and unforming itself from triangles disappeared to a video feed of a young man wearing a hospital gown and sitting on a bed. “Hey guys! You actually waited for me,” he said, smiling but sounding a little surprised at the same time.

            “How’s it looking, Hidenaga?” Yoshoku asked.

            Kensei scratched at his right arm around the edges of the high-tech glove he wore, where a green stain was starting to show against his skin. “It’s not great. It’s getting bigger.” The two looked away from the monitor and at each other, their expressions turning uneasy. “But it’s a lot better than if I hadn’t been pumping myself up with the glove!” Kensei quickly added.

            Doku cleared his throat before he spoke. “Are they letting you go, or do you have to stay in the hospital?”

            “They’re letting me go,” Kensei answered. “They want me to take it easy for a while, though. They say I’ve been pushing my body too hard with the Mighty Hand.”

            Doku scratched his chin in thought. “What they really mean is you aren’t allowed to fight or you’ll hurt yourself, right?”

            “Where’s that leave the two of us, then?” Yoshoku asked the obvious question.

            “We’ll figure it out,” Doku answered. “It’s what heroes do.”

 

XXX

 

            As he left Seito University Hospital, Doku Dasao found himself with a perplexing question facing him. There was nothing to do at CR, and right then he didn’t feel like interacting with Yoshoku or Kensei.

Really all he wanted to do was forget about real life and curl up in front of his TV with a long round of Taddle Legacy. But…

…he just didn’t feel up to going back home yet, and having the conversation with his parents he knew was coming.

            There was nowhere else for him to go. Doku eventually had to admit it.

            The houses and buildings seem to twist their tops around and follow him with eyes hidden in their windows as Doku walked past. Bright yellow eyes seemed to peek out of storm drains and the shadows of alleyways behind him. A cold cloak of worry settled over him. Not like the kind of worry he felt sometimes when he thought a Corrupture might be sneaking around nearby.

            Instead, it felt like he was leaving the world where everything was familiar. The world where he was powerful and knew exactly what the challenges he’d face were. As he entered it his collection of Rider Gashats were just lumps of plastic and circuits in his pocket.

            As soon as he shut the door and took his shoes off, Doku saw his fears were confirmed.

            Sitting there on the little table just inside was a pile of mail with the fancy return address of a handful of different universities.

Addressed to Doku Dasao.

“Anyone here?” Doku called upstairs.

Silence.

He gave a little sigh of relief and took the mail in, dumping it in a pile on the kitchen counter, hoping to buy himself a little more time to breathe before he had to talk to his parents about any of those.

Why, he asked himself even though he already knew the answer, would he want to put it off? He’d been imagining the beaming looks on his parents’ faces when they saw all the acceptance notices form all those universities where he’d applied. He’d been so eager to get away from an ordinary high school, to get away from the city where his sister had died fighting monsters for the sake of people none of them knew.

He’d imagined the elite positions he’d be up for after he’d finished his education. Doku’s family had told him in the most excited voices they’d ever used around him about how his name would go down in history after he picked a field and ran his own laboratory. Or headed up his own software team. Already things were being done with computer hardware that’d never been thought possible, thanks to things like Kamen Rider technology. Doku could’ve been an integral part of going forward with that.

But…

He took out the Taddle Craft Gashat and looked down at the label, the shining eyes looking out of the hood of the wizard meeting his. Almost seeming to challenge him.

What was being a famous programmer to being a _superhero_? How could Doku go back to a dream like that, a dream so… _normal_ , after everything he’d already been through? What kind of life would that be?

            He put the Gashat away again, got up and walked out of the house.

 

XXX

 

            For the second time Doku counted the bumps on the ceiling above the black leather and chrome sofa he’d been waiting on for the last fifteen minutes. The reception desk was empty, the GENM logo spinning on the screens endlessly.

He’d tried to call someone in authority to check in on the status of any Gashats, something to tip the balance again. He’d been told by the person on the phone that if any of the Riders called in, they were supposed to come see the CEO in person right away

            Doku had asked himself what was so important they could only discuss it in person, and was starting to think it was just that Koboshi was intimidated by the idea of telling them something important from far away. The CEO wasn’t the bravest person Doku had ever met. Those would probably be…well.  
            Instead of waiting any longer Doku walked up to the door behind the desk and gave it a loud knocked with the back of his fist. There was a scream from inside, and Doku kicked the door open and charged in with both of his Gashats loaded.

            Koboshi was lying on the floor, his chair tipped over and gaping up at Doku in shock. “Dasao-san! You scared me!” he exclaimed breathlessly. He got back up and set his chair back on its wheels. “I was wondering when you’d get here.”

            “I’ve been out there by myself for fifteen minutes.”

            “Oh, I must not’ve heard you come in,” Koboshi said absently. As soon as he sat down he stared hard at his monitors. Not waiting for an invitation, Doku walked around the desk to see what he was looking at.

            It was a page on some news site, with a headline saying “Machina Vision Sees the Future, GENM Stocks on the Rocks.” Koboshi just sat there, staring at it with flickering eyes, puffing breath into his hands folded in front of his mouth.

            “Is that what you needed to talk to your Riders about? In person?” Doku asked.

            “What?” Koboshi asked, looking up at Doku as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone. With the news on the screen, Doku didn’t suppose the somewhat flaky CEO was at his best. “Oh, no! Needed to tell you this was ready!” He lifted and looked under a stack of crinkled paper on his desk, put them down again then saw what he was looking for tucked behind a framed photo of a grinning Koboshi standing with an arm wrapped around the shoulders of Burgemon, the monster from the game Ju Ju Burger…but was that a costume or not?

            The object he handed Doku was a Gashat with a case that was a berry-like color somewhere between red and purple. From the clear circuit panel on top it was a primary form Gashat, and the name on the label said “Taiceranego.” Doku shivered a little and almost dropped the game as he realized what he had in his hands. On the label was art of an underground tomb built out of grey brick, thin hieroglyphs of armies battling giant demons standing out against the rock. In the middle of the picture was a tunnel opening, with numerous inhuman eyes glaring out of the darkness beyond. One pair was red and demonic, another made of graded blue squares like something electronic, and one round yellow eye looked out all by istelf.

            “Oh my god…a Taiceranego Gashat?!” Doku exclaimed, even though he was holding the proof in his sweaty hand.

            Koboshi nodded. “It’s based on the…,” he stopped himself, looked at a memo and said, “Unearthed Arcana set.”

            “They never made that one!” Doku almost yelled.

            “It wasn’t easy getting _that_ done for you either,” Koboshi complained. “Most of the development staff is leaving us. A few even said they’d gotten offers from Machina Vision! It’s got some new VR console coming out they were all excited to start designing games for!”

            Doku put the Gashat away. “We’re doing everything we can.”

            Koboshi nodded and looked away. “I know. It’s not your fault this company used to be run by a megalomaniac…and then another megalomaniac.”

 

XXX

 

            As he walked out of the GENM parking lot, Doku felt awful about what was happening to their benefactors, but at the same time finding it hard not to jump up and down.

            Taiceranego! An actual Taiceranego Gashat! And it was _his_ upgrade! The things he was going to get to do the next time the Amal Corrupture and his buddies showed up! Let alone Corsair! That stupid jerk thought he was so tough because of his brand new VR rig or something!

            But as he looked down at the new Gashat, Doku’s grip tightened apprehensively. If people were leaving GENM, what if this was the last one they ever got? What if their enemies got too powerful before they could save the old Kamen Riders and figure out a plan to stop the Corrupture for good?

            Suddenly he heard the frantic music that played when the Tomato King was attacking in Wighty’s Treasure XX. Doku actually looked around to see if the unstoppable enemy was bearing down on him, then remembered that was just a ringtone he set.

            He got his phone out and saw the Machina Vision logo on the screen, with red lights around the edges. Then Doku swiped through the opening screen and it was automatically open to a map of town, with a flashing red blip not too far away.

            It meant someone had reported a Corrupture showing up. He bet he knew which one.

            He loaded his Taddle Craft Gashat and hit the ignition. Kamen Rider Rune’s armor spread up his arm and across his body and his cloak appeared out of the title screen and dropped onto his shoulders. Then in a flash he was riding down the street on the back of the huge ostrich-like Cocobobo bird. The agile bird dodged around cars, going onto the other side of the street and jumping on top of cars as it ran as fast it could to get to where Rune had seen the alert coming from.

            Getting closer, Rune could see the effects of what had set off the app. In the middle of the street the city suddenly faded into an interior space, the sky covered from edge to edge by the inside of a dark building. Conveyer belts on the edge fed metal body parts from out of nowhere into the Game Area,and mechanical arms situated on the sides of the belts picked them up and attached them together into a waist and legs, on another belt they assembled a torso and arms.

            And standing on top of a pallet of metal legs long enough to go on a robot elephant, was the Amal Corrupture himself. In his hand he held a bright red Rider Gashat that gave off a dimming glow. Straining his eyes, Rune could make out the name: Gekitotsu Robots. Amal pressed the trigger button and slapped it into a slot on his hip.

            Bolts of red electricity jumped all over his body for a second and dark red armor formed over his chest and shoulders. A huge red and black fist formed over his left hand.

            Then he turned and looked over at Kamen Rider Rune, staring straight at him even without any eyes in his smooth face.

            “You and your pet can go home!” a familiar snide voice laughed from above as Kamen Rider Corsair came down from the sky in his little pirate ship, his mechanized crew of Auto Players standing on the deck waiting for his orders.

            While Corsair touched down, Rune loaded Gamble Paradise into his Gamer Septa and activated it. His dice-covered coat and top hat dropped onto him, but he decided to leave it at that for now even if he did have a more powerful game to use. Taiceranego was a game of strategy, and letting his enemy know he had a new advantage before it would do the most damage was giving away his edge.

            The Auto Players jumped off of Corsair’s ship and spread out to surround their target. Amal’s body blurred with round particles drifting off, and as they hit the ground they sprang up as virus-headed Corrupture Cells, the rest of their bodies covered in metal plating. Grey-armored ones had sharp metal pincers instead of hands, Cells with bronze armor had a machine gun mounted on one shoulder, silver-armored Cells had a spout of leaking streams of fire on both hands.

            Then the two gangs of minions threw themselves at each other. Rune gripped his cane as a pair of Corrupture Cells broke off from the main group and came running up to him with loud clanking steps. He sent the wheels on his chestplate spinning as they got closer. Then the wheels locked. BAR. BAR. BAR. A storm of gold coins ejected from the drop chute on his chest and covered the ground in front of the two Cells. As their heavy feet came down on the pile of coins they slipped and landed on their backs.

Meanwhile Corsair jumped and slashed his shining sword at Amal who easily blocked it on his heavy new fist. Amal threw an uppercut with it and caught Corsair on the forehead, but as the CLANG from the massive impact stopped echoing it was drowned out by an angry growl from Corsair.

            He came back swinging his sword furiously. A few times it caught Amal on the chest, but over and over the Corrupture managed to block the blow with his bionic fist.

            And then suddenly he jumped back, pointed his arm at Corsair’s head and his giant fist shot straight at the Rider.

            The expression Corsair might’ve had on his face as the giant fist hit him full in the chest was something Rune would wonder about for days. He flew back out of the factory of the Game Area like a red and blue bolt of light, probably screaming in rage but the sound was lost by the roar in the air as he was knocked out of sight. Instead Rune concerned himself with the Cells who were getting back up again, and sent the slot machine on his chest spinning one more time.

            Watermelon. Watermelon. Watermelon. The last wheel locked into place and a watermelon squeezed out of the drop chute and immediately swelled to the size of a car before it rolled at the pair of robotic Cells. One tore at the huge fruit with its pincers while the other opened fired with its machine gun. The first Cell was already too late, the giant watermelon rolling right over it. The other’s gunfire had chewed the side off and only left a layer of red mush and seeds against his arm and leg as the fruit went by.

            But the Cell had been distracted long enough for Rune to launch an attack of his own. He jumped over the fruit debris on the ground and went into a flying kick that connected with the Cell’s chest hard enough to make it jerk backward just as it was opening fire with its machine gun.

            The spray of bullets went wild and chewed a trail across the roof before hitting a tram carrying a pallet of parts across the factory. The heavy load dropped and landed on top of the Cell, crushing and spilling parts all over the floor with an ugly storm of metal clattering noise.

            Another Cell turned to face him, ripping a handful of wires out of the guts of one of Corsair’s Auto Players and kicking the disemboweled android to the ground. It and three others broke away from the brawl going on around them and rushed Rune. The Kamen Rider held his cane up in front of him, spun in a circle on one wheel and pointed his weapon at them.

            “ **Gamble Critical Strike!** ” it exclaimed dramatically. Suddenly the ground underneath their feet changed into a giant roulette wheel that went into a spin, whipping the Cells off their feet. A giant ball appeared and bounced along the compartments in the wheel and smashed each Cell until only a purple mist was left, that flowed up into the sky like a river.

            After that ground-shaking display of power the rest of the Auto Players and Corrupture Cells turned and inspected Kamen Rider Rune, the electronic eyes of the former no doubt assessing the kind of threat he posed. Standing above them, watching silently as always, the Amal Corrupture seemed to stare the hardest out of his eyeless face. Rune shivered and his hand started to slide back to his new Gashat…

            “Out of the way,” growled a voice from behind Rune. Rune glanced over his shoulder and wasn’t surprised to see Corsair there, the armor covering his chest dented and the sword in his hand seeming to shine with a sinister light. Without waiting for an answer the pirate charged.

            Amal stared down silently at him now instead. He reached for the Gashat sticking out of his leg and clutched it. It glowed and then a rippling red stream flowed from the Gashat down and pooled on the floor, a bubbling red puddle. It surged up and then solidified into a red robot with a triangular head and a bulky crab-like claw on one arm, and a hand below a silver hammer on the other arm. As if completing the effect, it had a thin pipe-like tail.

            Rune recognized the new monster: Gatton, a boss from the game Gekitotsu Robots. Then Amal himself turned into a stream of energy and floated away through a door in the back of the factory.

            The four Auto Players that were still standing didn’t take any time at all to judge Gatton as a threat and swarmed him wielding their billy clubs. “Gachan,” Gatton said. Then he swiped his claw and knocked the nearest Auto Player’s torso away from its legs. Gatton spun on one foot then swung his arms to knock down two more, leaving them sparking on the ground. Bravely the last Auto Player attacked Gatton head-on with its club, but he reached out and easily crushed the lesser machine’s head to a metal pulp with his claw.

            “Distractions neutralized, gachan,” Gatton declared, then turned and swept his electronic gaze over the two Kamen Riders. “Locking on primary target.”

            “Lock onto _this_!” Corsair yelled before he levelled his pistol at Gatton and squeezed the trigger. The shot hit Gatton in the chest, blasting him back a few feet despite the weight of all his armor and weapons. Then it _exploded_ , showering the area with fiery shrapnel, some of it Gatton’s own armor. Corsair ran in, yelling in rage, and easily knocking aside Gatton’s hammer-arm as the robot swung it at his side.

            But then Gatton’s heavier claw crashed into Corsair’s other side and he staggered away, a thin trickle of blood leaking from the mouth of his mask. Gatton charged and came in aiming the crushing claw at Corsair’s head.

            Then suddenly a pair of huge red dice rolled across the factory. One rammed into Gatton’s shoulder and knocked the attacking robot off-balance before the one die hit him across the knees and knocked him down.

            “ **HIGH SEAS CRITICAL STRIKE!** ” yelled Corsair’s visor as he flicked a small switch on the side, causing the blade of his sword to erupt with bolts of yellow and pink energy. He threw the cutlass with all his might, impaling Gatton through the torso, then ran up and pushed the weapon further through until the hilt got stuck against Gatton’s body. Corsair gripped the hilt with both hands then forced the blade of his cutlass the rest of the way through Gatton with one powerful shove.

            Gatton totally disintegrated after that vicious attack. But Corsair looked over Rune, pointing an accusing finger at the rival Rider. “I told you to stay out of my way,” he said with a restrained angry growl.

            “I don’t take orders from you,” Rune replied. Adding in his head, “besides, you were in trouble.”

            “You ought to think about doing that,” Corsair said, “considering how far below me you are, GENM punk.”

            Rune just walked around him toward the back of the factory. “You don’t actually play games much, do you?” Rune called over his shoulder.

            “What?” Corsair shouted back.

            “Players tend to start weak and get stronger,” Rune replied. He ran to where the Amal Corrupture had disappeared.

 

XXX

 

Out behind the robotics factory was a long grassy field, dotted with trees and patches of almost alien-looking flowers Rune couldn’t recognize but crumpled easily under the feet of his Cocobobo bird, wizard’s cape flapping out behind him again. The sky was a garish, unnaturally bright blue with blocky edges to the clouds. After another minute the grass ended at the edge of a parking lot and a flattened field dotted with concert stages.

On one of them hovered a glowing, neon green-colored Rider Gashat. Another one already?

But surrounding the stage was a screaming crowd of colorful aliens, robots and monsters, some of which Rune recognized as being from one video game or another. For a second Rune shuddered as it reminded him of the nightmare army of game enemies from their clash with the forces of Action 52, but as he rode to the edge of the stage none of them made a move to stop him.

Suddenly Rune noticed a stream of shining particles arcing down through the sky straight at the stage. He urged his bird to make the jump to the stage and its powerful legs launched them in a high arc over the crowd of video game characters waiting for the concert to start.

Then without warning the Cocobobo slammed into something he couldn’t see, squawking in terror and tossing Rune from the saddle to land in the middle of the equally-surprised crowd. None of them tried to attack him as Rune peeled himself off the ground to see huge red letters on a glass-like barrier saying PLAYERS ONLY!

He jumped for the stage again on his own, shooting off a fireball to try to break through whatever had blocked him before. But to his surprise both the fire and Rune himself cleared the edge without any resistance, the fireball exploding against something in the back. Whatever had blocked him when he’d tried to make the jump on his Cruiser hadn’t stopped him at all when he’d tried on his own.

As Rune landed, the Amal Corrupture finished forming on the stage. He reached out for the green Gashat but yanked his hand back as a jet of flame shot through the empty space. Rune grabbed for it himself but jumped back as Amal loaded a Gashat into his shoulder and moved with blinding speed to stop him, slashing at Rune’s arm with feline claws. He pulled back in time to avoid losing his arm, then Amal loaded another Gashat and split into blue and orange copies. The blue Amal had Gekitosu Robots from earlier in its hand again and hit the trigger.

            “Out of the way, punk,” barked a sharp voice and Rune groaned inside as Corsair jumped onto the stage too. “I’m taking that!”

            The crowd cheered. “FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!” they chanted.

            “Shut up!” Corsair snarled and fired his pistol into them, but the shot went right through anyone it touched like it’d been fired into a puddle of water. It looked like they counted as indestructible scenery like in so many other games.

            “No,” Rune said, and Corsair’s head jerked up suddenly in surprise. “The other Riders need those so they can come back.” Corsair snarled and turned all his attention on Rune, aiming both his weapons at the Rider.

            “How do you know that?” Corsair demanded. “How do you _know_ that’s what those do?”

            “I’ve seen inside that portal that the Corrupture come from,” Rune replied. “They’re inside it, and those games we find and release go back to them.”

            Corsair looked at him for a second then grabbed for the Gashat the same time Blue Amal lunged for it, swinging his oversized robotic fist at Corsair’s head. Orange Amal snarled like a tiger and pounced at Rune.

            Who stuck Tanceranego in the side of his wand and activated the new game. “ **Heart Level 30**.”

            A spray of colorful Energy Items fountained out and came down all over the area. As it always did, a giant holographic title screen for the game unfolded above his head. This one showed more than just the label on the game, with a legless, bearded robot hovering above a blue-scaled dragon sitting back on its haunches and gazing down at an ancient brown book it had splayed open in one claw. On the other side of the doorway filledwith monstrous eyes, a little vehicle on tank treads pushed through the side of a wall with the huge drill mounted on the front. Next to that stood a clay doll with a creepy smile and a mechanical key sticking out of its head.

            “ **You’re the gridmaster! Unseal the labyrinth! The ancient weapons awake! BATTLE FOREVER!!!!!** ”

            From out of the screen floated a Gamer like always, but this was strangest one he’d seen yet. Instead of a squat little robot it was a bright white dome with a serrated purple fan on top the color of the Gashat’s case, riding on top of a white triangular plate. The Gamer zipped out as Orange Amal slashed at Rune, coming between the two of them and raking the sharp fan across his body.

Then the Gamer split apart, the dome dropping over Rune’s head, making the fan look like a head of wild spiky anime hair. From inside it dropped a purple leather jacket with bronze-colored Mobius symbols on the sleeves and shoulders, meant to reflect the endless battles of Taiceranego. The finishing touch was a purple belt closing around his waist, the buckle two halves of another bronze Mobius.

            The transformation still wasn’t finished; the triangular plate on the bottom split apart into oddly-shaped sections. Rune’s wand pulled itself out of his grip before the pieces from the plate attached themselves to it, forming a sloping panel on one side of it. Then it drifted down and attached itself to his right wrist. The panel was divided into a row of small rectangular areas, with an indentation next to his hand, holding a stack of cards. He remembered this device, a Battaifield, where the forces summoned by the players gathered to attack.

            Without warning Rune found himself rising into the air, on a round platform with a silver railing across the edge, stopping when he was about 20 feet off the ground.

Orange Amal growled and jumped at him again, making Rune throw his arms up in front of himself. To his amazement the Corrupture monster went straight through him, then Rune caught his breath and smiled behind his mask. Of course he couldn’t be attacked when he used this game…But it meant he couldn’t directly attack either, so he pulled the top two cards off the stack.

“Arise, Rumble Coffin, punisher of the desecrators!” Rune said as he placed the first card on the panel on his arm. The front showed an image of a coffin popping open and a rotted green arm reaching out and grabbing a terrified robber.

A trap door seemed to form itself out of the stage below him and out of it rose a stone coffin balanced on its bottom. Rune placed the other card face-down on the panel.

Orange Amal stared at the coffin cautiously with his eyeless face. Then suddenly the lid creaked open just far enough for a pair of devilish red eyes to stare back, and a spray of thick black dust to billow out and cover Orange Amal. The Corrupture swatted at it but the dust started to buzz like a swarm of insects. The plates of his armor were melting from the deadly dust in the air, then sloughed off. Orange Amal angrily charged through and picked up the coffin, only for a decayed green arm to reach out from under the lid and grab his wrist, then use the hold to pull him forward and slam Amal’s face repeatedly against the lid.

Meanwhile Blue Amal landed a punch on Corsair’s shoulder, making him yell in pain and almost drop his cutlass. Almost. He stabbed Blue Amal with all his strength, the blade going right through the red armor on the Corrupture’s chest. With a fierce upward slash Corsair knocked his opponent aside and reached out for the green Gashat floating in the middle of the stage.

Above him Rune saw him go for the prize, and flipped over the other card he’d readied. The front showed a bird-headed hieroglyph stepping off a wall as an unwitting thief held up a handful of gold coins and a pearl necklace. “Arise, Glyph Chaser, protector of the ancients’ treasure!” Rune said.

From out of the shadow cast by some rigging a humanoid shape solidified, turning its bird-shaped head over at the Gashat. Then a second before Corsair was going to grab the Gashat, its almost transparent arm whipped out and grabbed it instead.

Then the empty silhouette, the Glyph Chaser, was off and running with its glowing treasure in its hand. Corsair snarled in frustration and ran after it, the blade of his cutlass flashing as he ran. There was an electronic sound behind him, and he looked over his shoulder and gasped as he saw Blue Amal coming after him.

Standing on the top hatch of a tank.

 

XXX

 

Orange Amal hit the lid of the coffin so hard sparks flew from his dome head. The monster inside let him stagger back a step then pulled him in again for another crash.

Instead he gave a feline scream of absolute fury and swung his free hand, bashing off the top of the coffin lid. He wrenched his other arm free and tore away the bottom of the lid next, but Rune smiled as he watched and tapped the section the Rumble Coffin card laid on. It meant sacrificing his monster, but he’d be giving Orange Amal a surprise.

“ **Card Critical Finish!!!** ”

The Corrupture was about to throw himself at whatever had been battering him inside the coffin, when from out of the darkness inside of it came a geyser of wailing smoky faces. The gazes of the Rumble Coffin’s victims over the centuries, angry or despairing, vengeful or lost, they all stared at Orange Amal who froze in place. The blast of lost souls hit him like a cannon, shattering his weakened armor before shattering the rest of him too. Rune allowed himself a small smile as he drew another card and placed it face-down.

He looked over to where Glyph Chaser was zipping back and forth across the stage, nothing but a hollow blur, with Corsair chase right behind him, and somehow the stage was holding up a pixelated tank that Blue Amal piloted behind _him_.

“AWESOME!” someone in the audience yelled over all the noise of the chaos unfolding on the stage. “I don’t care if the concert EVER starts now!”

Suddenly the tank’s cannon roared at the same time Corsair fired his pistol. Both shots met and seemed to tie together into one bigger projectile and hit just where Glyph Chaser was running. A huge blocky explosion went up and tossed Glyph Chaser up to the top of the stage where it smacked into the canopy and then smacked against the bottom of the stage.

Corsair was faster on foot than his Corrupture rival was in a tank and got to the helpless Glyph Chaser’s side first. He grabbed the shiny object in the outline of its hand as the tank’s cannon swiveled around to aim at him and Glyph Chaser disappeared.

“What do you think of that GENM?” he called triumphantly.

“Arise, Suicide Doll!” Rune replied.

“What…?” Corsair asked as he actually looked down at his prize. It wasn’t the green Gashat he thought they’d been fighting over, instead it was a shiny ceramic doll. A metal crank stuck out of the top of its head, and as soon as Corsair noticed it the crank stopped turning.

The doll’s mouth flicked open, revealing rows of pointed metal teeth. “I LOOOOOOOVE YOU!” the doll cooed in an unsettling echo before exploding.

            The blast tossed Corsair across the stage before hitting the barrel of the tank, blowing it off. Blue Amal looked up at Rune and lifted his robo-fist to the Rider’s head.

            Suddenly a big metal hook whipped out from the edge of the stage, the rope it was on wrapping around Blue Amal’s arm and yanking it straight up. A giant onion arced through the air, and a glowing bullet hit the top before it landed starting it sparking like a fuse. The onion landed on top of Blue Amal’s tank and exploded noisily in a cloud of smelly white dust.

            Standing past the crowd at the edge of the stage was Kamen Rider Utsura, wearing the blue hat and vest and wielding the fishing rod of his Level 30 form, and Kamen Rider Sling, in his maroon apron and chef’s hat of his Level 3 form. Behind them at a safe distance was Kiiko Mishiranu.

Corsair got up off the ground, hissed in frustration and jumped off the stage. A second later they saw him sailing away into the sky on his pirate ship.

            “You guys came?” Rune asked, looking down at the other Riders. “I didn’t call anybody.”

            “What do you mean?” Utsura replied.

            Rune looked back and forth as if trying to find the words to explain himself better. “I mean, what are you guys doing here? I didn’t tell anybody where I was.”

            “What do you mean?” Sling asked. “Maybe you needed help. Even if we did have a guy here already.”

            “Ah…yeah. Gotcha.”

            Utsura cleared his throat. “What did you do with what you guys were fighting off?” he asked.

            “Oh!” Rune exclaimed and pointed behind some scaffolding. Utsura pushed through the crowd and jogged back to where Rune pointed, pulling out the neon green Gashat.

“It says DoReMiFa Beat,” Utsura noted. “Here, catch.”

Rune canted his head. “Why me? Aren’t you gonna do it?”

“From what it looked like to us, you did most of the work with those two back there,” Utsura replied and looked back at Sling. “Right?”

Sling just nodded.

Utsura hefted the game. Rune held out his hands and awkwardly caught it despite the huge device still attached to his arm. He looked down at it: DoReMiFA Beat, it said. He clicked the trigger button, and light covered the game before it whisked itself up into the sky.

All of them watched it go and disappear into the portal in the sky. They turned away, but Sling stopped. “Hey! Something’s happening!” he called to the others.

They turned back around, and stopped in their tracks as they saw he was right. The portal was coming down closer, the front rippling violently. The Riders readied themselves for something big, and as the portal shook even harder it seemed like a humanoid outline was flickering in and out in the middle of it.

Then there was a huge BANG and a rush of force that pushed the Riders back hard enough for sparks to shoot off their boots. Something was coming down, something so bright it looked like a meteor. The crowd of game characters cheered at the sight but did nothing to move from their spots.

The glowing shape punctured the top of the stage and made a crater as it came down and finally stopped glowing. As one the Riders stepped forward, hoping they were ready for whatever had been spat out of the portal.

None of them were. Instead of another monster, it was a human lady with short pink hair and a dress with a yellow top but a skirt covered in oversized buttons and eye-searing combinations of yellow and pink, the patterns in the shape of squares. She had on stockings in jarring patches of pink and green.

“She’s back!” someone in the crowd yelled in recognition. “Poppy’s back!”

“Poppy?” Utsura asked. “Like the mascot from that rhythm game?”

“That rhythm game that _sucks_ ,” Kiiko corrected him with annoyance.

The woman stood up uncertainly, and took a few cautious steps closer to them. “Kamen Riders?” she asked after a minute.

“We like to think so,” Utsura answered. “Do you think maybe you can tell us about what’s going on?”

She shut her eyes and clutched her forehead with a thumb and index finger. “If you maybe you’ll try to tell _me_ , too,” she replied.

 

XXX

 

**There was a LOT of clean up involved in getting this chapter ready to go. Hope it turned out all right.**

**So yeah, there’s a Gashat based on a TCG here. I would like to thank DiscontentCat for talking me into that idea. The original plan for Rune’s upgrade had been for a game called Taddle Summon about a wizard who summons mythical creatures to fight for him, inspired by the old 16-bit game Master of Monsters. He suggested a TCG monster dueling game, and I agreed that was a lot more unique. The additions to Rune’s suit in this form are, obviously, based on Yu-Gi-Oh. The original series, for recognition more than anything.**

**As for the theme of the game, originally we discussed a set of monsters that were a collection of war robots. I came up with the names of a few other sets just for color, but then looked through those again and couldn’t get the “Unearthed Arcana” idea out of my head and changed the theme of Rune’s power in this form to ancient machines and buried horrors. As Orange Amal certainly found out…**

**But more than that, the New GENM Riders have saved the first captive. The fight isn’t going to be easy but they’re making some tangible ground.**


	18. Dungeon and Zombie Control?!

            “Here, try some of this,” Yoshoku said as he set a steaming mug of coffee on the meeting table. “It doesn’t look like there’s any cream or sugar around…this place probably hasn’t been restocked in a while.”

            She nodded gratefully over at him, then tried to manage a playful smile, despite her exhaustion. “Hiiro-san probably poured all the sugar on top of all those desserts he ate!”

            There was no reaction from the New GENM Riders gathered around the table. Poppy supposed she shouldn’t have expected one; she didn’t know them, and none of them knew the Riders she had known. She was glad to find out new Riders had appeared in their absence, and even more glad to see them having some kind of tenuous group dynamic already. She’d been brought back barely an hour ago, though, and she was still trying to regain her footing.

            It wasn’t helped much by the annoyed side eye the girl who hung out with them kept giving her.

            The clean-cut boy—Kensei, she remembered he’d said his name was…what kind of name was that?—sat down and looked over at her. “I don’t mean to push you, so please tell us if you need to wait to answer, but we’d really appreciate it if you could try to tell us how you ended up in there. What happened to the other Kamen Riders.”

            Poppy paused in the middle of a sip as she felt the cold gazes of all four people on her at the same time. The girl’s seemed to be the coldest, for some reason. Like they were waiting for her to tell them something that would make things even worse.

            She set the cup down without taking her drink. “I don’t remember very much,” Poppy said. “I remember we were all here in this room. Taiga, Hiiro-san, Emu, even Parado and Kiriya-san…we had the Proto Gashats here on the table, and we were talking about how we needed to save the people stuck inside them. Then suddenly there was a big flash, and then after that the next thing I remember I was falling out of the sky and landed next to you.”

            Yoshoku let his chair fall forward from the sharp lean he’d been back in. The sound of the legs hitting the floor was so loud and sudden Poppy shrieked and spilled her cup of coffee. “What are you doing?” Doku demanded irritably.

            But it seemed like he hadn’t even heard the question. “What are the Proto Gashats?”

            Kiiko looked at him with a dismissive shake of her head, and Poppy felt a bit of relief that the girl’s attention was on someone else. She answered, “The Proto Gashats were the original Rider Gashats. The data on all the people who died in Kamen Rider Chronicle is stored in them. _Try_ to keep up, huh, Kasuga?”

            Yoshoku’s eyes opened wide. “Then that means they’re what we need to save everyone!”

            “ _Now_ he gets it,” Kiiko chuckled, folded her arms and looked back over her shoulder at Kensei for confirmation of her remark.

            He didn’t look back at her, though. “That sound, right, yeah. But I bet if those Proto Gashats are so important, it won’t be that easy to get them back.”

            “What do you mean?” Doku asked him.

            “Well, just work with me here for a second, okay?” Kensei replied. “Remember when we started collecting the old Riders’ Gashats, and it turned out the main Corrupture were really our families?”

            Poppy made a startled sound to hear him say that.

            Kensei went on. “Well, as soon as they’re not there keeping the other Corrupture from getting too dangerous, what happens?”

            “We get attacked by a Rider from a rival company,” Yoshoku answered him.

Hearing that made Kensei shut his eyes and smile slightly in spite of the serious question he was asking. “A Corrupture that can use Gashats too shows up. Doesn’t that make it sound like someone sent a monster like that on purpose? If someone sent a monster like that on purpose, it means they’re in charge of the Corrupture and they probably have some kind of plan.”

            Everyone was looking intently at him.

            “…and so if someone intelligent is behind all this, they’re probably trying to protect the old Gashats to make sure nobody else can use them. _Especially_ the Gashats that are what are holding all the victims from Kamen Rider Chronicle.”

            A moment of silence passed, and Kiiko was the one who broke it. “So, who, then?”

            “That’ll be our next big mystery to solve, won’t it?” Doku muttered.

            They all looked over at Yoshoku as he coughed loudly and looked down at his fist. “Aren’t we forgetting a more immediate mystery?”

            “Like what Doku?” replied.

            Yoshoku pointed with his thumb over at Poppy. “Where’s she gonna stay?”

            For the first time since they’d met her, Poppy smiled. “Oh, I’ll just stay in my old place.” Then before anyone could ask what that meant her body turned into a glowing stream that flowed into the DoReMiFa Beat machine off in the corner. Suddenly she reformed on the screen, smiling and waving to the surprised group.

            “Wow,” Kensei said, and looked over at Kiiko with a slight smile on his face. “Could you do that?”

            She scoffed and looked away. “My powers have a _point_ …”

 

XXX

 

            Slowly he cocked back his fist, then yelled as he threw his hardest punch. The pressure pad rocked back, the whole machine creaking under the power of his attack.

            The monitor on the side rolled up numbers until it got to 43.52.

            “Good job, sir! That’s 2.71 more than before the last tuning!”

            But Kamen Rider Corsair scoffed. “Don’t try to kiss up to me,” he said to the technician in the observation booth. “The power’s in the game, I know that, you know that. Do you people have what you need now, or what?”

            “Those are all the measurements your father said he needed, yes,” the tech replied, and Corsair smirked a little as he noticed the man flinch.

            He reached up and pulled the High Seas Scourge Gashat out of his visor. His armor flickered away, but the sneer from his voice was still on his face. “Then we’re done,” Suihei Shuugouteki said and turned toward the door. He rode an elevator up to the main lab, and the guards hurried out of his way when they recognized him.

            On the other side was a room full of computers and desks. In the wall was a row of windows, showing a room where technicians in white suits and hoods were monitoring an object the side of a Rider Gashat but twice as wide.

            And in the middle of all the technicians hurrying around, a man in a crisp blue suit stood at the largest desk talking with a group of five technicians at once. Suihei walked straight over to him, but suddenly a man the size of Mount Fuji appeared and blocked his way.

            “Move, Kedamono,” Suihei growled at the much bigger man. “I’m here to see my father.” He tried to step around, but the huge man stepped in front of him again. “What do you think you’re doing?!” Suihei demanded.

            “Tousen is doing his job,” Ayatsu Shuugouteki replied, standing up but not turning around to face his son. “Just as I expect you to do yours. What are you doing up here?”

            Suihei shifted to one foot, then the other one. “I came to say the tuning for High Seas Scourge is working. It’s stronger than before.”

            “I know it is,” Ayatsu replied without emotion. “These people are well-paid because they’re the best minds in the industry; if they couldn’t do what I ask they wouldn’t be here.”

            “I just thought…,” Suihei trailed off, not sure what to say. He’d hoped that things would change now. Father had given him an important job, Suihei had thought it was a sign of faith. “Never mind.”

            “Then let me oversee the new weapon,” Ayatsu said, still not turning to face his son. “You know how important this is.”

            Suihei scowled at his father’s back. The huge man, Tensou, growled warningly at him. “The GENM Riders can’t even come close to comparing to our tech,” Suihei pointed out.

            “And you know we’re working on something big, that’ll take all the power we can gather. Something bigger than dealing with a rival company.” Ayatsu said, and Suihei bristled at the veiled implication he heard: that _his_ job, actually dealing with their rival company, paled in comparison.

            “Then I’ll let you return to work, sir,” Suihei said as respectfully as he could with how brushed-off he was feeling. Tensou stepped forward and clamped a hand on Suihei’s shoulder, but Ayatsu cleared his throat and let go again.

            “You don’t need to take things that seriously, my friend. Suihei knows the way out, and he knows what his job is,” Ayatsu said. “He’s the face of Machina Vision now that the alert app’s gone live. Just remember, Suihei: you aren’t some sort of clown for hire. If someone calls in something that’s not an emergency, tell them you provide a valuable service and if it’s abused, it’ll be taken away.” He turned and smirked over his shoulder, the first time he’d looked at his son at all. “Just tell them gently, will you?”

            Suihei smiled slightly and nodded. “Yes sir,” he said as he left the lab.

 

XXX

 

            From well beyond the back of the mob trying to snap pictures and the police offers trying ot warn them away from the barricade that had been set up, Kensei and Kiiko could see the pixelated landscape where the last battle with the Amal Corrupture still covering an area of a few blocks. Part of it was a tall grey concrete block, the robotics factory, and then it spilled into a grass field and then a parking lot and a collection of stages.

            The crowd of aliens and robots waiting for their concert to start hadn’t even dispersed from the view sensed by the high-tech stethoscope in Kensei’s hand.

            “I don’t get it. Game Areas never stick around after we beat the monster and get a Gashat that was in them,” Kensei mumbled, an irritated tone to his words.

            “The enemies always get stronger after while though, right?” Kiiko answered. “And we didn’t beat the Amal yet.”

            “I kind of wonder if we can,” Kensei murmured. He looked down at his arm, the green shine of the poisoned wound under the Mighty Hand seeming even more intense than before. To stand up to such powerful enemies and keep the wound from worsening he’d been using the boosting powers of the glove a lot, but his doctors had told him he wasn’t strong enough to keep using it like he had. If Kensei kept relying on it, he would burn himself out.

            Again, he faintly wished his brother was still around. Maybe even that he’d been a Kamen Rider instead.

No, a Kamen Rider _too._ Kensei had managed a lot for a guy his age, who didn’t even play video games when the Gamer Driver was sent to his house--

            Kiiko slapped him on the back of the head, interrupting his thoughts. “The hero doesn’t get to doubt himself!” she declared loudly. A few people from the mob, including a pair of police officers, looked over to see what she was yelling about, so Kensei turned and grabbed her hand then walked away.

            “All right, all right, I’m not doubting myself,” he whispered to her. “But I don’t have to do this all by myself, you know?” Kensei smiled a little. “I’d say we’re getting a pretty decent party together.”

            “Mmmmm,” Kiiko said, unimpressed. “Kind of seems to me like we’re just getting stuck with more help we don’t need.”

            “What are you talking about? How is more help bad?”

            She didn’t answer right away. “Most people in multiplayer games are just out for themselves…” Kiiko muttered.

            “What?”

            Kiiko sighed. “Look, that lady’s from a _music game_. How’s she going to help us?”

            “And I got powered up from a _painting_ game and now a _fishing_ game,” Kensei said, smiling a little and reaching out to touch her shoulder reassuringly. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry so much.”

            She sighed again, but put her hand on top of his. “I just want to make sure nothing gets in your way.”

            He patted firmly on the shoulder, and held up his gloved hand. “I can’t do this by myself, Kiiko. I’ll die trying if I do it that way.”

            She just looked at his glove and shook her head.

 

XXX

 

            The small figure ran through the shadows, oversized eyes darting back and forth looking for a trace of the power.

            He was the Brave Knight, the only one in the kingdom still willing to venture forth in search of the fiend and the lovely princess he’d taken away. It would be a terrifying quest and the odds were against him, but the sweet embrace of the princess was worth--

            Suddenly he noticed a spark, just barely visible through some buildings in front of him. He raised his tiny sword to the sky and bravely charged after it.

            A black rocky field suddenly appeared in front of him as he stepped into the sun again, but he knew to stop and wait for a safe opening. Sure enough a huge metal and glass monstrosity with round feet that towered over the top of his helmet rolled by. The Brave Knight jogged down to his left where there was a tall metal pole with a yellow box with an arrow on the bottom. He jump up and stabbed the arrow with all his might.

Then he waited. It was like a thousand eternities, knowing he was getting no closer to the rescue of the beloved princess.

            “Mommy, mommy! Look! It’s the Brave Knight!”

            “The what, sweetie?”

            “The Brave Knight! From Taddle Quest!”

            “Oh, right…that’s one of your little games, I think?”

            A sound of disgust. “It’s not little! It’s cool!”

            “Of course it is, sweetie. I don’t see anything, though.”

            “Down there!”

            “Down where?”

            Then the huge metal objects stopped rolling by, and he recognized the shining symbol of a white outline of a person against a bright green backdrop that meant he had a window of safety to get across. He hurried across the black and white-striped ground as fast as his tiny legs could take him.

            “There! There he goes!”

            “Oh! What a fancy toy…”

            The Brave Knight ignored the strange words of the clueless people. He could see his next quest shining brightly on top of a flat rock in the middle of a small park. A strange object with a clear rectangular top and white bottom, DANGEROUS ZOMBIE written across it.

            Suddenly a withered grey hand pushed itself out of the grass near the, slivers of bone peeking through the gaps in the flesh. Another hand just like it pushed out of the ground before a zombie with a purple virus-shaped head climbed stiffly out of the dirt.

            Immediately another two Corrupture Cells in torn clothes with decaying skin clawed the ground over their bright purple heads apart too. A toddler with a winking image of the game character Mighty on the back of his bright blue jacket spotted them and wandered closer while the zombie Cells slung their dry grey feet onto the grass. His mother saw what had gotten her son’s attention and screamed at the top of her lungs as she grabbed the boy and ran for the edge of the park. Within barely a second every other person around had seen the source of the scream and were running for all they were worth from Cells.

            He needed no more invitation. Clutching the hilt of his adorable enchanted sword, the Brave Knight charged across the park. Even as he did a curtain of flickering green and pink energy spread from the Dangerous Zombie Gashat. As it passed the bright green grass turned to cracked dirt, the bright pink petals of the trees lining the walk turning into twisted messes of blackened wood. More and more zombie Cells were climbing out of the dirt and a few clumps smashed against the visor of the helmet that covered his entire head. His entire body, honestly.

            With his most powerful jump the Brave Knight reached the midriff of the first Cell. He stabbed his tiny sword with all of his tiny might, the tip erupting in a tiny fireball. The zombie Cell swatted with his rotted hand and batted Brave Knight away, but flames were already spreading across the Cell’s body, who shambled forward seeming not to notice at all.

            Leaving his taller enemy to their oblivious doom, Brave Knight dashed past to where three more Corrupture Cells were shambling in his direction. He pressed the blue gem in the crossbar of his sword, making a wave of blue light travel up to the tip.

            Brave Knight held his sword up over his head, letting it charge with power that made a sheet of front form over the blade. Then he swung it with all his adorable might in a wide arc at the Cells, leaving a trail of white light and snowflakes behind his blade.

The wave of energy covered the Cells, freezing them in place, covered in sheaths of ice.

“Ha-HA!” the Brave Knight cheered at his victory.

Then something grabbed him by the head and hoisted him into the air.

He was twisted around to look into the black dome of the Amal Corrupture, its curved talons digging into the metal of his helmet. Determined to find to the end, he clutched his sword and reared back to strike with it.

Amal squeezed harder and the tiny defiant sprite shattered into pixelated shards.

 

XXX

 

            “Are you sure about this?”

            “Why shouldn’t I be? You have a Level 30 game now too, right?”

            “Kind of…”

            “ _Kind of_?”

            “Well I checked, and like I thought the starting monsters in this game are lower levels than that. There are tricks you have to do to get them more power. It’s not like—”

            He stopped talking into his phone as a battered maroon-colored food truck suddenly screeched to a halt next to him, stopping so hard sparks flew from behind the wheels. Painted up on the side was a green banner with yellow lettering: THE SCORCHING EXPERIENCE. Underneath the banner was a service window, but sitting in the driver’s seat was Kamen Rider Sling, wearing the maroon chef’s hat and apron of his Level 3 form. “Get in,” he ordered.

            Doku shook his head in faint disbelief but did as he was told and got into the seat next to him. Immediately Sling slammed the sole of his boot down on the gas pedal and the truck squealed away from the curb.

            He let out a yelp of surprise and grabbed for the seatbelt as he was almost tossed out of his seat by Sling’s violent driving. “Do you even have a license?!” Doku yelled.

            “We have to hurry! Unless you want the monster to get another game!” Sling shouted over the noise of the van screeching back and forth through traffic leaving sizzling skid marks along its whole path. “Did you figure out where the knight was when he got taken out?”

            Doku got out his high-tech stethoscope and pressed a button bringing up on a grid map of a few surrounding blocks. A bright blue blip like the case of the Taddle Quest game that had created the Brave Knight flashed at the bottom of one square. “Think you can get us there alive?”

            Sling looked right back, somehow deathly serious despite the giant anime eyes in his mask. “Just worry about powering up your monsters, if that’s what you need to do.”

            The Taiceranego Gashat seemed to get heavier in Doku’s pocket as Sling said that to him. It had seemed so awesome to get a game based on one of his favorites before, but hearing Sling say that, he started to wish for something more straightforward. It would make their plan a lot simpler…

            But then he stopped himself. It had been made with him in mind, to play to his skills specifically. Doku had become a Kamen Rider planning to show how much he could accomplish. Was that such a bad goal, done for the right reasons?

            “Hey…Hey!”

            “What??” Doku answered, snapped out of his thoughts.

            “I’m counting on you, Dasao. You have to handle things by yourself while I’m looking,” Sling said.

            “Don’t worry about me.”

            Doku was surprised to hear Sling reply, “Okay.”

 

XXX

 

            Soon the food truck stopped cruising down a neatly paved city street and crossed over into a grey wasteland dotted by toppled buildings, patches of what had once been asphalt roads and dried up trees.

            Shambling along in the same direction as the two of them were Corrupture Cells in filthy ragged clothes, but their purple turkey-like heads were as shiny as if they’d just been polished. Doku leaned forward in his seat over the shiny heads of a group of Cells in the distance, sure he could see a black dome sticking out above the rest.

            “Hold on tight, I’m going right through!” Sling announced.

            “Wait, what?!” Doku exclaimed, but already they’d hit the first of the Cells, who rolled up the hood of the truck and cracked the windshield.

            “Suit up!” Sling yelled. He got out his giant chef’s knife and stabbed it into the gas pedal, then bailed out of the speeding van. Doku gasped in surprise but loaded the Taiceranego Gashat and hit the trigger.

            Sling’s food truck sped up and crashed into the huge mob of Cells, tipping over and slamming into a row of them. Just before it did a round platform exploded out of the top, Kamen Rider Rune standing on top. The spiked hair of his new Taiceranego form blowing in the rush of air, and the bright white Battaifield device already attached to his arm.

            From his floating viewpoint Rune could see over the mob of Cells and that, just like he’d suspected, the Amal Corrupture was standing in the middle of their gathering. The grey strips decorated with his name all over his body had become white plates that looked like clusters of hardened bone. Rune didn’t have to guess it was thanks to the white Gashat sticking out of his shoulder.

            The Corrupture waved his arms back and forth over the assembled Cells. A red-purple energy trailed from his hands as he did, and the Cells close enough for it to touch shook violent and then started jumping up and down shrieking in what sounded like killing glee.

            And then at the moment Amal looked right up at Rune, and pointed a curved claw up at the Rider.

            But a shadow passed over them in the next instant. Rune glanced up and wasn’t surprised at all to see the familiar shape of a small pirate ship cruising by. Corsair again. Of course, a new monster sighting and a new chance to try to make his stupid company’s systems look better.

            He came down right on top of a bunch of Cells who popped like balloons and flowed away in a storm of blazing purple tendrils. The pirate Rider looked over at Rune, and behind his mask, Rune was sure there was a sneer.

            “Come to save the day with your little monster kids game again?” Corsair said, confirming it.

            “Come to steal another company’s game again?” Rune said right back in challenge.

            But Corsair didn’t reply with a snarky one-liner. Instead he replied by pulling out a double-wide Gashat with a gold case, two grey panels sticking down from it. The label showed a red-bearded giant in the middle of putting together a grey stone castle. The label on it read TADDLE DUNGEON.

            “Wait, what the hell is—” Rune sputtered.

            “Let me show you!” Corsair cut him off, and handed the Taddle Dungeon to the only Auto Player standing on the deck of his pirate ship. The android took it and plugged it into a socket on its chest.

            Immediately the ground under them turned from blasted dirt into a grey brick floor. It spread out around them in a wave, covering the barren apocalyptic wasteland in seconds. Walls of those same grey brick formed around them and even spread to cover the sky.

            “Game start,” Corsair laughed.

 

XXX

 

            Rune pulled two cards off his deck then immediately flipped them over as he placed them on the Battaifield on his arm. “Arise, Glyph Chaser!” he yelled. A shadow stretched itself out and started to shine with its own soft light, becoming the monster on his card.

            “Arise, Loremaster! Keeper of the scrolls!” he invoked the other card. A hovering silhouette formed then filled in with dull bronze-colored armor on its arms and torso, but a nickel-colored face and a tangle of silvery fibers dangling from its chin like a beard. Instead of legs its torso terminated in a short metal spike that hummed with power.

            Rune frowned. Not the opening hand he’d been hoping for, but he’d seen players win with worse initial draws.

            Corsair wasn’t waiting for him, his flashing sword already in his hand as he dashed at the Amal and the Corrupture Cells around him. The swings of his powerful blade knocked down the zombie Cells down 4 and 5 at a time. Inside a minute he had slashed a path through them and the Amal Corrupture was right in front of him.

            The monster still only had the one Gashat loaded into his body, which seemed strange but Corsair wasn’t about to sacrifice a chance at an easy shot over a question like that.

            Maybe he should have.

            As he thrust his sword at Amal’s heart, the Corrupture didn’t move an inch and only stared him down, its blank dome meeting the oversized eyes of his mask. But suddenly something grabbed Corsair’s arm and pulled it backward. It was one of the zombie Cells, quickly joined by another one grabbing his other arm. Corsair gasped in disbelief; he’d just knocked the same ones out of his way a second ago.

 

XXX

 

            Across the room more Cells swarmed around Rune’s Glyph Chaser. But the Loremaster robot floated above the silhouette monster, pulled a scroll out a compartment in his chest and read a long stream of words. A shower of silver light came down and covered Glyph Chaser, who took off running so fast he was only a streak of light as he snaked back and forth through the undead Cells in front of him.

Glyph Chaser threw punches at all of them so fast none saw them coming but leaving them sizzling behind him. A few seconds after he passed, the Cells burst into clouds of purple. They spiraled through the air a few times, then curved back down behind where Amal was standing and reformed into humanoid shape again.

            “What’s going on?” he yelled, but unsurprisingly no-one answered. Rune noticed something out of the corner of one eye, and _was_ surprised to see Kamen Rider Sling sneaking through a passage on the other side of the dungeon wall, and from the depth what looked like a few floors down. Could he see through the dungeon floors and walls from the perspective given by his TCG Gashat?

            Suddenly the floor slid to the walls revealing a bubbling pool of magma a hundred feet below. Sling shouted in surprise before he jumped and grabbed a metal torch attached to the wall. Awkwardly he swung his legs back and forth trying to reach a small opening in the wall above him…

            But before he could see if Sling managed his escape there was a sickening crunch. Rune looked up and saw a grey stone block had fallen out of the ceiling and flattened one of the Cells that Corsair was fighting. As he swiped his sword keeping another few at bay another block dropped out of the ceiling and landed on top of more Cells.

            Amal looked around as if in confusion, waving his arms at the Cells standing around him and filling them up with the frenzy of the energy he was giving off. Most came charging at Kamen Rider Corsair, giving off a weird sound that was part bird warble and part human scream. The artificial zombie army was only a few feet away when suddenly the floor collapsed only a step in front of Corsair and the first of the Cells dropped into a black pit that hadn’t been there a second before.

            Then suddenly the walls dropped away on the sides of the room and huge tree trunks suspended on dark metal chains swung out from the new openings on both sides, slamming into the remaining Cells that had been about to attack Cosair and smashed them into a purple cloud that flowed through the air and reformed into humanoid shape behind Amal. They were on their knees and quivering slightly as if weakened, though.

            “What in the hell’s going on?” Rune muttered in confusion, but clearly loud enough for Corsair to hear him, as he turned halfway to look up at him.

            “This is the power of a game like Taddle Dungeon!” he declared, glancing at the Auto Player he’d plugged the game into before. “You design your own dungeons and fill them with all the traps and monsters you can think of! This Gashat can change a Game Area at will to give our side control of the battlefield! That’s how far behind us you are, GENM!” Corsair turned back to Amal.

            Above Amal the ceiling suddenly opened up and a huge column of stone dropped down right on top of him, but in a flash he’d plugged in two more of his stolen Gashats. He thrust his arms up, now ending in a heavy robotic fist and feline claws, shattering the stone in a burst of grey dust.

Buzzing slightly in what sounded like annoyance, the faceless Corrupture held up his arms and let more energy flow from his fingertips over his army of zombie Cells. The ones behind him still catching their breath jumped up and screech/warbled. Even darker energy than before gushed from Amal’s hands, covering the zombie Cells around him. Their bodies cracked and seemed to pop outward as their muscles surged in size. Bony spikes pushed themselves out of wrists and elbows. Corsair actually went back a step and raised his sword, even with the advantage of control over the battlefield.

Cells rushed in, the bulked-out ones jumping the pits that opened in the floor and got up again after a column dropped on them from the ceiling. Corsair’s flintlock roared and knocked one Cell on his back, but another jumped through a fire jet and tackled Corsair. As he ran his blade through the attacking Cell, the other three surrounded Rune’s pair of monsters. But what could they do against unkillable undead enemies?

            Then a metallic blue Energy Item spun over and over through the air at Rune, showing a man white on one side and black on the other, with arrows pointing inward. Out of instinct Rune reached out to catch it. As it touched his hand, the shining blue disc shrank and reformed itself.

            Into a card.

            Standing across the room way behind Amal, was Utsura, the hook on his fishing pole still swaying from flinging the item. “Not bad for the first catch of the day, huh?” he called.

            “You’re not supposed to be fighting, Hidenaga!”

            “I’m not!” Utsura replied and laughed a little. “I’m taking it easy with a relaxing day of fishing!”

            Rune didn’t argue, instead he looked down at the new card in his fingers. It showed a pair of shadows standing in back and a pair of curving arrows came down from and met in a glowing ball of light. Rune smiled with relief behind his mask as he realized what he had the power to do with that card.

            But that would be for later. For now, keeping Amal from getting away with another game was his main priority. “Charge him, Loremaster!” Rune commanded, and the floating robot drifted over his other monster, read the ancient lore on his scroll and showered Glyph Chaser with silver power. The Glyph Chaser leaned forward then took off like a sprinter, ripping between the bulked up Corrupture Cells.

            “Oh no you don’t!” yelled Corsair.

            “ **HIGH SEAS CRITICAL FINISH!** ” yelled the voice of Corsair’s gear as he aimed his flintlock up at Amal himself. A shot flew out and grew bigger until it was the size of a cannonball. Chains shot out of the floor, one snapping shut around the Corrupture’s neck, another one around a wrist and another around his ankle. It was only enough to hold him for a second, but that seemed to be all Corsair was banking on. The shot exploded with a huge, blazing explosion and cloud of smoke.

A few minutes later it cleared, but the rest of the Corrupture Cells, and the Amal Corrupture himself, were nowhere to be seen.

            “Where did he go?” Corsair demanded, looking around. Saws poked out of the floor and globes where yellow lightning danced inside came out of the ceiling, but there was no sign of the Corrupture.

Only streams of pixels flowing away through any opening they could find, the remains of the bulked ups Cells that Rune’s attack had destroyed.

            “He got away, _with_ that new game,” Rune replied.

            “He ran away,” Corsair said. “What a worthless pussy.”

            “And you still keep showing up looking for a fight with him,” Rune said. Corsair looked up at him and growled in anger. “Look, if you’re going to fight me, then just fight me,” Rune went on, trying to avoid suggesting that Corsair fight both him and his weakened ally.

            Corsair climbed back into his pirate ship and pulled the Taddle Dungeon Gashat out of the chest socket of his Auto Player minion. “Next time, it’ll be after they’ve added another mode to this game. PvP. Then you’ll see what you’re playing with.”

 

XXX

 

            The dungeon peeled away brick by brick behind Rune and Utsura as they made their way out. Secretly Rune looked back to where he last saw Sling, and saw the cowboy Rider making his way out through another stairway a few streets over. Rune hoped he’d managed his goal, but with Utsura around he couldn’t just go ask…

            As they entered the secret room under Seito University Hospital, Doku looked back over his shoulder at Kensei, the green veins of his poisoned wound seeming to glow lightly, an idea that sent a shiver up Doku’s spine.

            “Why’d you come?” Doku finally found the nerve to ask.

            “Because the two of you stayed when I was getting told how bad it was, so you’d know too, right?” Kensei replied.

            “You’re not much good as a kung-fu hero if you lose your arm,” Doku gently tried to point out.

            Kensei shrugged, but nodded. “So we need to hurry and see if the old Riders can help, huh?”

            As they entered the CR lab it seemed empty, until a shower of pixels gushed out of the DoReMiFa Beat cabinet in the corner room and Poppy Pipopapo lived up to her name by popping out of the air in front of them. “Did you find them yet?!” she exclaimed.

            Both of them literally jumped backwards in surprise. “No,” Kensei anwered. “There was a Corrupture there who got away with stealing a Gashat, though. It was called…what was it called? I didn’t really see, I was trying to get the best item I could.”

            “Dangerous Zombie,” Doku supplied.

            “Eeeeeeh?!” Poppy squealed, and Doku and Kensei jumped back even farther this time. “But that one’s dangerous!”

            “We know,” Doku said. “It says so in the name.”

            “What exactly does it do that’s so bad?” Kensei asked. “We saw him use it to make an army of zombies.”

            Poppy’s eyes opened wide as she heard that. “Eh?? That’s _really_ bad! It let Kuroto come back to life as many times as he wanted! Emu fixed that part, but…”

            Doku looked over at Kensei. “Maybe the Corrupture can access some of that again?” he once again supplied.

            “I’m having a pipopapoPANIC!” Poppy said and started to dash around the room.

            “We have to hurry and get the other Riders back,” Kensei whispered to Doku, who nodded.

            And unknown to any of them, a stream of purple pixels flowed silently into a computer that crackled for a second then played the CR screensaver in perfect synch with the others.


	19. Strain in Dungeon

            Her last sip of coffee felt strange as it went down. Something she’d really never tried before, but it helped her to feel like things were getting back to normal.

            She hadn’t been gone for long at all, really, but everything had changed so much she hardly recognized things the way they were now. The stock chart on her tablet showed GENM’s value plummeting for the third straight week. Meanwhile a bright blue line showed Machina Vision’s stock skyrocketing.

            How was that possible?? Machina Vision created another Gamedeus, just as bad as the first one! But then…GENM had been run by two megalomaniacs in short succession. She put her tablet in her bag, wondering in the back of her mind which of the two of them was worse.

            But as she got up from the coffee shop’s patio table, slid the strap of her purse over her shoulder and straightened he dark blue blazer she realized she was wondering about something else. New Kamen Riders had appeared while she was gone.

            Did that mean something like another Gamedeus was coming too?

           

XXX

 

            The doors were locked shut, but she pulled on them again anyway.

            She faintly hoped it was just some kind of mistake. Maybe Taiga had slept in that morning. He was always so angry about something, it seemed to her that’d be so tiring.

            But still, the rundown hospital was locked tight, and she knew Taiga wasn’t coming to open up. She had seen him, along with the other doctors. Back in that weird hole in the sky with all the other people.

            They were still trapped.

            She was the only one who’d escaped.

            No. “Escaped” wasn’t the right word. She’d been save by those kids, the new Kamen Riders. The ones who used Rider Gashats and fought monsters, but ones she’d never heard of. Everything was different. Everything she was used to, all the people, all the things they said and the way they acted…it was all just gone.

            It was like Asuna Karino was stepping into a brand new world.

            Or actually, like she was starting a game she’d never played before. Where everything seemed familiar, but something was off about the interface. None of the conversation options she picked got the people she talked to want to help her. And the enemies…

            She turned away from the clinic, the thick heels of her shoes clicking against the asphalt. They echoed ominously through the empty parking lot and she hurried away even faster.

            As she walked through a small park Asuna felt something in the air, and squinting hard she could just barely see a cluster of pink sparks floating in the air. Asuna reached out to touch it.

            The air in front of her seemed to _unzip_ into a bedroom. There was a closet taking up most of one wall and a bed in the corner next to them. Widescreen monitors seemed to cover every other surface, even the ceiling. Standing just outside another indentation in the wall, a shower curtain hanging in front of it, was a girl Asuna recognized. She also had her shirt hiked halfway up a and look of surprise and disgust on her face.

            “What do you think you’re doing here?!” she screamed and yanked her shirt back down.

            Asuna stumbled over her tongue for what seemed like forever. “I…I’m sorry!” she finally managed, at the same time placing the girl’s face. It was the one who hung around the new bunch of Kamen Riders. The one who’d been giving Asuna dirty looks every time they saw each other.

            “What’s going on?” Asuna found the voice to ask as she looked around the room.

            “It’s my bedroom! What did you think it was??” Kiiko snapped, seeming more annoyed at who’d found her than having her secret discovered from the pointed glare she was giving Asuna.

            “So…wait, this is where you live?” Asuna asked. “Where did this come from?”

            “I don’t know! When I needed one, I just knew this is where it would be,” Kiiko said, but the annoyance was getting less intense.

            Asuna looked around again at all the screens, most of which were blank. The biggest one showed what looked like a paused rhythm game.A scene of islands with palm trees and winking hula dancers behind bubbles filled with arrows. She thought she recognized it: _Aqua Beat!_ She glanced up at the score: only 500 with barely a minute left to go in the session. This Mishiranu girl didn’t seem very good…

            “Look, I’m trying to take a shower, do you mind?” Kiiko interrupted.

            “You have running water?!”

            “Yes,” Kiiko replied, annoyance coming back into her voice. “How else am I supposed to take a shower?”

            Asuna looked over at her, confusion written all over her face. “…what _are_ you, Mishiranu-san?”

            “I’m the navi, I’m here to help Utsura win the game.”

            “But where did you come from?? Where did you get—”

            But Kiiko held up her hand and shook her head. “I’m just here to help the hero win the game. I don’t know what else. That’s it.” Asuna took a step forward but Kiiko turned away. “And don’t tell me you’re sorry, okay? I’m doing fine,” she said

            Her nurse’s background told her to assure the girl. Having no identity, that was something Asuna had known what that was like once. But Asuna had gotten through that, and gone on to be surprised by the capacity of good will people could have. She should show some of that to this distant girl…

            “Could you please go now?” Kiiko said, interrupting her thoughts. “I have to be ready to help the next time something happens.”

            “All right,” Asuna said, unsure what else to say, and stepped away, and the next thing she knew she was back in the park.

 

XXX

 

            The sting from his arm was getting harder to ignore as Kensei tried to ignore and focus on the teacher’s lecture. When the final bang rang he was already in front of the door with his bag in his hand.

            He ran down the halls and out the school gates as fast as he could, and as soon as he was out of sight of the school pushed the x1 button on his glove. Kensei’s whole body shook and for a few seconds he couldn’t breathe from the sudden rush of power. When he stopped shaking the sting in his arm was gone, but his whole body ached for a few seconds.

Was he pushing his body too hard? What options were left for him, with the poison getting stronger and the energy boost that’d been keeping him safe wearing out his body?

            “There you are!” called a voice behind him and Kensei automatically grabbed at his Gashat collection before he recognized it. Kiiko came running up behind him with a shiny silver tablet that showed Kamen Rider Sling in his cowboy form blazing away at a group of zombie Corrupture Cells. “A fight’s happening and we’re missing it!”

            “Is the Amal there?” he asked.

            “Does that matter?” Kiiko asked back in reply. “You’ll look bad if those other two do all the work! As your trainer, I have to make sure you never fall behind!”

            “Yoshoku and Doku are on our side, Kiiko,” Kensei said, then tried to change the subject. “Have you talked to Poppy much yet?”

            Immediately Kiiko stopped in her tracks and frowned. “Why?”

            “Because she’s the one you were partly created from, right? Yuuma and the others said something like that,” Kensei reminded her. “Thought you might want to see if you two connect.”

            “I don’t need _anything_ from her,” Kiiko said sharply, then gripped his shoulders from behind and started pushing him down the street. “Now get going or we’ll miss the whole fight!”

 

XXX

 

            The car-sized catfish swam through over the buildings around them, leaving more than a few confused people staring out office windows or up from the streets below. Already the guiding glow around Kiiko’s finger was fading, though. The fish descended toward an 8-bit Western town that was rapidly fading away, and Kamen Rider Sling stood with his gun holstered and waving up at them before they landed.

            “You didn’t miss much,” Sling explained. “I just ran into a couple Cells. They didn’t even seem like they were looking for anything.”

            “That’s weird,” Utsura said. “They’ve never done that before.”

            “Speaking of weird, what are you doing here?” Sling asked him. “Thought your doctor said you had to take it easy and not get into fights unless you really needed to, or something.”

            “He’s trying to get rid of you so people just see him,” Kiiko whispered into Utsura’s ear, but he waved her off.

            Shouldering his fishing pole, he asked, “Have you seen Corsair this time?”

            Sling shook his head. “That what I thought was weirdest about all this…Dasao told me about what he said last time. You think he’s waiting for a chance to spring something on us?”

            Utsura nodded gravely. “I’d bet anything he is,” he answered, glancing upward as if he expected their rival’s pirate ship to sail by any time. But as he looked around he noticed Kiiko frowning and looking around, then locking her eyes on Utsura when she saw him looking back. “Let’s let each other know if we find anything out, okay?” he asked Sling

            “Sure,” Sling replied. It was all he said as he turned and started to walk away.

            As soon as Sling had gotten a few more feet away Kiiko dashed over next to Utsura, whispering into his ear. “You see?! He doesn’t think you’re a teammate! He barely listened to you!”

            Utsura stepped back. “Kiiko, what’s gotten into you lately? I know you’ve had a hard time trusting the two of them, but this isn’t cute anymore…”

            Kiiko looked at him at him for a long second without saying anything then took a long step back. “Even _you_ don’t get it now!” she shouted, and ran away.

            “Kiiko?...Kiiko! Come back!” Kensei called and ran after her.

 

XXX

           

            An hour slipped by, then another as Kensei combed the streets and alleyways around them, looking into any shadow where he imagined Kiiko might be curled up and hiding from him.

            He held his phone to his head while he looked around another street, his fourth call to Kiiko’s phone getting no answer. A frustrated sigh he realized was his own broke hissed into the mic as it went to voicemail, and he almost threw the phone on the ground. Sounds like that sure weren’t going to convince her to come back.

            What had gotten into her? Kiiko had insisted Kensei was the only Kamen Rider anyone needed from as far back as when they first met. Of course she had. But now that they had two enemy factions, more Kamen Riders who didn’t want to beat his brains out seemed like a better idea than ever. Why did she think it was so terrible?

            The stinging from his arm flared up again, making Kensei hiss in frustration again and cover his other arm with his hand. His palm dragged uncomfortably over the buttons on the back of the Mighty Hand, and then yanked his hand back before he pushed something.

            A grinding noise suddenly sounded out over the daily clamor of the city. Kensei looked over in its direction.  
            Forming on top of a skyscraper was a cluster of grey stone blocks that quickly assembled themselves into the pointed spire of a medieval tower. Bricks crawled across the windows of the building, going lower and lower until they got the street and sped across the street, forming a wall with turrets and everything, to the next building over and wrapped their way up the next building too.

            People were hurrying away from the stone castle that was forming and covering the entire block. Blocky guards in grey armor with spears leaned over their shoulders started walking the walls. There was a flash of light from the main courtyard and Kensei stopped in his tracks as it projected a shadow of what looked like a dragon’s head on the side of the nearest building.

            “ **ENTER, BRAVE WARRIORS!** ” boomed a voice that seemed to come from everywhere above him at once. “ **FIGHT YOUR WAY TO THE DRAGON’S LAIR, AND FIND THE ULTIMATE PRIZE! TADDLE ON TO YOUR LEGACY!** ”

            Kensei took one more look at the castle, then turned and started walking the other way.

            He didn’t have to guess that this was the payback Corsair promised the last time they met. The last thing Kensei planned to give him was the stupid spectacle he wanted, treating actual fights with their powers like arguments between players in a video game. Kensei wondered if Corsair would keep treating it that way when a Corrupture came along that was more powerful than he was. The way things were heading, it probably wouldn’t be a long wait.

            All of a sudden his phone buzzed in his pocket. Kensei yanked it out and immediately hit the accept button on the screen before he recognized the ringtone; it was the title screen ballad from Taddle Quest, the one he’d given to Doku’s phone number.

Not the one from Kiiko’s he’d been hoping for.

            “Did you hear that??” Doku exclaimed, not even waiting for a greeting.

            “Yeah, I heard. I even saw while it was putting itself together,” Kensei answered.

            “So you’re already there?!” Doku exclaimed so loudly almost Kensei toss the phone away. “I’m on my way, wait up for me!”

            Kensei grunted. “I’m not going in there! Why should we jump because he says so?”

            A second of confused sputtering came over the phone before Doku found his voice again. “You don’t know? Taddle Legacy’s one of the old Riders’ Gashats, one of the strongest. If Machina Vision has it, we have to get it away from them. Right away.”

            “All right,” Kensei said. “I’ll wait for you and then we’ll go in. But my arm’s getting worse.”

            “Yeah…yeah, I know,” Doku replied slowly. “Just wait until I get there.”

            Then he hung up.

 

XXX

 

            Crowds of people had formed across the street from the castle’s grainy walls, a lot of them snapping pictures with their phones or taking video hoping something spectacular would happen. A few young, brave individuals broke away from the crowds and ran across the street to the doorways. Most were blocked by a falling iron gate but one daring you man rolled inside underneath one before it fell.

            A few minutes later there was a scream of terror and he came tumbling out of a first-floor window headfirst, landing on his back with a thud.

            While he waited for the other Riders to show up Kensei got out his phone and tried Kiiko’s number one last time. It rang twice then suddenly stopped. He put it away again, and tried to stop thinking about it. Yoshoku would Doku would need all the help they could get inside the castle, he already knew.

            But then, he had an idea.

            Stepping back into an alley and then settling himself in a shadowy corner, he pulled out a pair of Gashats: Jet Combat and Bakusou Bike. He triggered both and two small sprites appeared, a fighter jet with a jagged-toothed smile painted on the front and a small yellow motorcycle whose windscreen looked an awful lot like eyes.

            “All right guys, I need you to find her,” Kensei said and flicked through his phone to a picture of Kiiko screaming in rage at an arcade cabinet as she lost at _Aqua Beat!_ once again. The two sprites studied the screen for a second, then turned around and sped away.

            Then spotted a shadowy figure peering down the alleyway, then froze as they spotted him. But Kensei let out a sigh of relief when he recognized it was Yoshoku Kasuga walking closer. “You all right, Hidenaga? The look on your face, it was like you were expecting someone a lot worse.”

            “I got things on my mind,” Kensei replied.

            “Well, get _that_ on your mind,” Yoshoku said and pointed past him at the castle wall. His eyes went a little wider as something seemed to occur to him. “Where’s Mishiranu?”

            “I don’t know,” Kensei shrugged.

            “She’s not with you?”

            “Do you _see_ her?” Kensei asked, getting irritated.

            Yoshoku held up his hands. “All right. So how do we get inside without everyone seeing us change?”

            Then they didn’t see anything but darkness as the ground suddenly dropped out from underneath the two of them. The trap door that had just opened under them swung closed again, leaving no sign of anything wrong in the tiny alley where the two Riders had been.

 

XXX

 

            It was impossible to see anything while they dropped down the totally dark slide, and that was made even worse by the yelling of the two of them as they bounced off the walls and each other all the way down.

            A square of faint light appeared in the distance below them and seemed to spin as they turned over and over down the dark slide. Finally they skidded onto a hard stone floor, tangled together from their violent trip down the chute.

            Kensei pulled himself out from under Yoshoku and right onto a huge fresh bruise on his shoulder. He groaned out, then his arm started stinging again, then started _burning_. He let out a pained scream and fell down on three other bruises he hadn’t even noticed.

            “What’s wrong, Hidenaga?” Yoshoku asked, bending down over him and grimacing as he went down on a bruise right on his knee. “Is it your arm?”

            Then a curved blade four feet long whipped out of the wall straight at Yoshoku’s waist. He yelled in surprise and dropped to the floor as fast as he could. The blade actually sliced a drop of sweat off his forehead in half.

            “Holy shit!” Yoshoku wheezed.

            “ **WILL YOU MAKE THE ULTIMATE RISK TO WIN THE ULTIMATE PRIZE?** ” the voice from before came form the ceiling, tone high and taunting.

            “You underestimate me so much,” Yoshoku growled. He turned to look over at Kensei from where he was lying. “Hidenaga, that arm of yours okay?”

            “No!” Kensei growled, and Yoshoku instinctively pushed himself back away from Kensei. Both from the sudden anger in his voice and the green glow suddenly surrounding his poisoned hand.

            Yoshoku loaded his Bang Bang Sunset Gashat carefully, his hands shaking at the fear from what he was seeing. He pulled the trigger and a wave of energy passed backward over him, covering him in Kamen Rider Sling’s armor and mask. His hat and poncho dropped onto him, but there was something else this time: a leather satchel with a strap draped over his shoulder, underneath his poncho.

            Sling stepped over to Kensei, one hand wrapped around the butt of his gun and reaching into the satchel with his off-hand. A hovering screen appeared in front of his face, with a picture of a silver Energy Item on it and the text x5 in the bottom corner. He touched the screen and pulled his hand back out holding a stack of Energy Item discs that he pressed against Kensei’s arm. The discs dissolved into a shower of green sparkles and after a minute the ugly glow around Kensei’s arm had faded.

            Kensei looked down at his arm, then up at Sling with a glint of angered suspicion in his eye. “You were planning to do that,” he said, more than a little accusing.

            “And you need to change, now!” Sling said, pointing over Kensei’s shoulder. He looked back, and the brick floor behind them was caving in bit by bit, exposing a black void underneath. Kensei slapped his Driver around his waist and triggered River Harmony.

            “Henshin!” he yelled and loaded the fishing game into the slot on his belt. Then he and Sling were running down the hall away from the collapsing floor. The River Harmony Gamer floated out behind him, split into Utsura’s jacket and hat and dropped onto shoulders, the Gashacon Catcher extending out to full length as he ran.

            Suddenly the floor in front of them collapsed into a pit too and both Riders jumped over it from as close to the edge as they dared.

            They flew through the darkness for minutes that seemed like days. It was just like when they’d been going down the slide in the dark just a while ago, but then the frayed edge of a stone platform came into sight.

            That was when Sling realized it was a hundred feet away and already at his eye level.

            “I’m not gonna make iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!” he yelled as Utsura went by him and skidded to a stop. He whipped around, and with the pain from his arm gone he could see Sling falling out sight behind him. Utsura raised his fishing pole behind his shoulder then swung it forward as hard as he could. The shining silver hook stretched out on the fishing line, then caught on the back of Sling’s poncho. Utsura leaned back and tapped the A button on his weapon rapidly to reel in his fellow Rider.

            Sling stumbled onto solid ground as fast as he could then pulled the hook out of his poncho. “Did you really make that jump just because your level’s so much higher?” he groaned.

            “Is it really gonna help that much when the other guy has control over everything in this castle?”

            “It just did,” Sling reminded him. “But where do we go? I mean, I kind of remember stuff about the evil wizard being up in the tower, or something about the dragon being in the caves underneath the castle.”

            Utsura shrugged, and Sling sighed in frustration, but Utsura went on. “I don’t know. I heard of that game, it’s not just a regular RPG. It lets you make your own castles and fill them with any traps and monsters you want. The goal could literally be anywhere in here.”

            “So you mean he could’ve put it somewhere we can’t get it?!” Sling exclaimed.

            Then a voice came from above, but it wasn’t the melodramatic voice of a game’s narrator like before. This was a voice the two them automatically recognized. “What kind of contest would that be?” said the voice of Kamen Rider Corsair. “You’re here to take us on fair and square, GENM.”

            “You should be glad you don’t have to deal with him instead,” Sling muttered, and shivered at the thought.

            “We’d been planning on testing all three of you, but maybe it’ll make for a more exciting sight for everyone watching,” Corsair went on like he hadn’t heard. “See if you can make it through the castle to your treasure.”  
            Sling whispered in Utsura’s direction. “How do we find it?”

            “If Kiiko was here she’d be able to tell us,” Utsura sighed.

            “But Mishiranu isn’t here,” Sling quickly replied. “What about the Chibi Gamers instead?”

            Utsura nodded, and Sling pulled out a pair of the smaller Gashats that activated their spies. He hit the triggers and two sprites appeared, the bright pink form of Mighty and a hamburger with a shiny black face peeking out of a bite that’d been taken out of the side. “Find the Gashat,” Sling commanded. Both Chibi Gamers hurried into the shadows, Mighty running bent forward and Burger-chan hopping like a spring with its patties breaking apart and coming back down on top of each other. “What’ve you got right now?” Sling asked.

            “Nothing,” Utsura answered.

            “BS. We always carry some around,” Sling retorted.

            “I know,” Utsura said quietly. “The ones I have are out looking for Kiiko-chan right now.”

            The cowboy Rider leaned over to try to look Utsura in the face, as if he might read something there through his ally’s mask. “Why? Is she in trouble? Is that why she isn’t here?”

            “No,” Utsura answered quietly. “We just argued about the two of you guys working with us and she ran away.”

            “Hidenaga, we have bigger problems than that right now if you haven’t noticed…”

            “You sure do!” Corsair called down. A wooden door creaked open loudly and something growled on the other side. “Games hate it when you don’t keep moving!”

            Sling pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “Let’s get out of here. You’ve gotta take it easy on yourself.”

            “Gotta keep your asset viable, huh?” Utsura muttered

Suddenly a doorway flickered into sight in the wall and out of it hopped a bunch of…trolls was the only word that came to mind, but one of the weirdest types either Rider had ever seen.

They were short, the tips of their horns only coming up to about the Riders’ waists, but they had a long snout coming out of their purple faces ending in wide, fang-filled mouths. They had white manes of hair sticking out from the back of their heads, their bodies almost totally covered in puffy purple fur. They had long feet, short leathery tails and each had a weapon like a spear or a curvy-bladed knife in their spindly fingers

            They all cackled, then started bouncing back and forth, swinging their weapons.

 

XXX

 

            From inside of a stone dome on top of the artificial castle, Kamen Rider Corsair watched on a holographic screen projected from the eyes of an Auto Player standing in front of him. The Taddle Dungeon Gashat was plugged into the center of its chest, and the screen showed Utsura and Sling bracing themselves as the bouncing purple-furred monsters ran screaming up to them.

            “Make sure they put on a good show for the viewers,” said a voice that made Corsair instinctively turn around to face it. There was another hologram there, a projection of his father’s powerful form. A hint of a smirk was on one side of his mouth.

            Corsair laughed. “I just hope it lasts long enough! We were expecting all three of them.”

            “Keep your eyes open for him, Suihei-san. They might be saving him for some kind of surprise attack,” Ayatsu said to his son.

            “Yes, sir,” Corsair said, and pulled the High Seas Scourge free from its slot in his visor, making his armor fade away and leaving him as just Suihei Shuugouteki. He pulled the Taddle Dungeon Gashat from its socket in the Auto Player’s chest and slid it into his visor instead. A bright blue glow covered him, small screens showing images rooms all over the castle appearing one by one in the field of power around his body.

 

XXX

 

            One of the trolls’ curvy-bladed knives turned into a silver blur as it was swung at Utsura’s neck, but out of nowhere a glinting silver hook shot out, and the line connected to it wrapped around the knife. Then the weapon was yanked out of the troll’s hand. By the time his crazed mind had registered that he’d been disarmed the fishing line lashed out again, the hook replaced by a heavy metal bobber that landed on the troll’s head and knocked him out in one hit. Utsura yanked back on his fishing pole, the weight on the end morphing back into a large cook, but gasped in pain as his aching arms trembled.

            The barrel of Sling’s Pamaka blazed over and over as he fired a stream of energy bullets at his own opponents, who bounced around crazily to avoid his shoots. Suddenly two trolls launched themselves at Sling in a flying tackle. Both of them connected with Sling’s stomach and a dry gasp was slammed out his mouth.

            Two more of the ugly little things jumped on him, closing their mouths around his wrists, then bit down with teeth that were just as sharp as their knives. Sling tried to shake one of them off to grab his other Gashat for whatever power boost it might give him but the monster just bit down even harder.

            Then something whipped through the air, something glimmering bright silver. The horrible purple trolls looked up at it, mesmerized, slowly letting go of Sling as it flicked back again. He could see now that it was a lure swinging on the end of Utsura’s fishing line, then suddenly it broke off and went flying out a window, with the trolls eagerly jumping out after it.

            Utsura held out his hand and Sling took it, letting the other Rider pull him up. “I don’t believe it,” Sling breathed.

            The other Rider glanced at the edge of the health bar peeking out from under Sling’s poncho. All of what he could see had gone black after the hits Sling had just taken. “We should think about finding a way out,” Utsura said softly.

             “You’re not kicking me out of this!” Sling growled. “I’ve got just as much right to be part of this fight as you do!”

            “It’s not about a right, it’s about surviving,” Utsura countered.

            Sling looked over at him, body going slack and tilting his head to give a disbelieving look. “Like you’re anybody to talk. You’re still feeling the pain from what you just did, aren’t you?”

            Before either of them could say anything else, the entire castle suddenly shook like an earthquake was hitting it. Utsura shoved open the door behind them and ran through, Sling right behind him.

           

XXX

 

            She looked back at the doors to the secret CR unit one more time, then turned and walked away down the hall, her footsteps echoing loudly off the walls.

            It was a sound Asuna didn’t remember hearing before. CR had always been so lively before, even when the doctors weren’t always getting along. Especially when Kuroto had been working with them.

            Part of her even wished he was back. They could never take their eyes off him, but Kuroto made sure things were never boring, there was no denying that.

            Another corner and there was the front desk. Asuna was about to walk past it, not sure where she was going as long as it wasn’t Seito University Hospital, when the woman behind the desk frantically waved her down.

            “Ah, Karino-san! Didn’t you hear us paging you?”

            “What? No, I was organizing…something. Important,” she slightly stammered, caught unaware.

            “Well there’s a girl who ran upstairs and is demanding someone treat a friend of hers for poison. She said knew you and you cleared her to be up there.”

            Asuna’s jaw dropped. Who could possibly do something so crass? And who would charge into a hospital and demand a specialist instead of calling for help if things were so…

            Then it clicked.

            She ran for the nearest elevator and with mechanical precision dashed through the halls to the toxicology ward. Just like Asuna had been expecting, Kiiko Mishiranu was being chased down the hall by two orderlies. Another one came at her from around a junction in the hall but she yelped and kicked him hard in the side then ran away while he groaned in pain.

            Knowing the layout of the hospital by heart (or was it programming?), Asuna ducked the other way and came up in front of Kiiko as she dashed another hallway. She held out her hands and caught them against Kiiko’s shoulders. The girl recognized her and was about to yank herself free when Asuna called to the orderlies, “It’s all right, I’ll take care of her from here.”

            A look of surprise was on Kiiko’s face for a second before she yanked herself free from Asuna’s gentle grip. She started to run away again but Asuna found her voice this time. “Mishiranu-san, why are you always so annoyed with me?!”

            Kiiko stopped in her tracks, glaring knives over her shoulder at Asuna, who didn’t didn’t let up. “We should work together! Don’t you think that? Isn’t what we do important enough you should accept all the help you’re offered?”

            Silence fell over the hallway. Orderlies were staring at them, even a few doctors and patients were looking out of their rooms to see what was going on. Kiiko’s fists shook for a minute before she turned around and blurted out, “I don’t need you, onee!”

            Everyone was staring at her with wide eyes. Especially Asuna Karino.

 

XXX

 

            The large orange ball rolled back down its ramp and crashed into the huge shiny black ball coming up fast bend them. Sling held out his hand to stop Utsura from running forward (even though he wasn’t) until the giant purple ball in front of them rumbled past and they had a valuable second to run by safely.

            Both Riders jumped over a hole in the floor and slid through an opening in the wall into another room. They came to a stop in the middle of a round wooden platform, but as soon as they did it started dropping so fast the walls of the shaft became a blur. It stopped next to a wooden walkway so suddenly the two Riders were almost knocked down, then dropped a few dozen feet and stopped harshly next to another wooden walkway.

            “Now!” Utsura yelled and jumped for the edge a second before Sling did the same. Utsura’s higher Level carried him higher and farther, almost the edge of the walkway while Sling landed on the very edge and windmilled his arms for a few seconds before getting his balance back and staggering away from the edge. He stared down in morbid curiosity to watch the platform go rocketing down into the depths and smash through the floor on the bottom.

            “Who the hell would play in a game like this?!” Sling gasped. “We would’ve died right away if we screwed up once in the last three rooms!”

            “The one with the trolls wasn’t too bad,” Utsura replied. “But the one with the stairs that turned into a slide and the purple tentacles…that was a pain.”

            “The one with the trolls wasn’t bad _for you_ ,” Sling snapped as he walked past Utsura and shoved open the first door he saw. “You’re ten times stronger than even at my highest level.”

            Utsura followed him, holding on tight to his Catcher and looking around carefully. They came out into another room that looked like a blacksmith’s workroom, except they had climbed up two floors. What was one doing up there? Then again, this was created by a video game; practicality wasn’t really the point.

            There were racks and racks of weapons along the walls: swords, axes, maces and spears. The forge was lit, the fire inside a weird bright green color. Standing next to a door in the back corner was a statue of a barrel-chested warrior clutching an axe in his giant ape-like hands, his head looking like it’d been squashed down by some powerful downward attack.

            Sling didn’t seem to notice any of it. “Hidengaga, we can’t keep this up! GENM’s going down the drain, and the only other guys with tech like ours are out to kill us! What do we do?!” he asked in exasperation.

            Utsura reached out to put a reassuring hand on Sling’s shoulder, but the hand was shaking terribly and Sling stepped back. “And look what it’s done to your body,” Sling went on. “Even if we do have somebody who can compare, it’s killing you to do that…”

            “Look, Yoshoku—”

            “Don’t call me that, Hidenaga,” Sling sighed.

            “Why not?” Utsura asked. Then gasped as he suddenly saw one of the sword glow yellow and launch itself into the air at his chest. He swung his fishing pole like a staff and batted it away just before a mace, glowing bright purple and _growling_ with deadly magic swung itself at Sling’s head next. The cowboy Rider blasted away with a steady stream of bullets but the mace only kept coming until the line from Utsura’s pole snaked out, hooked the mace by the chain and smashed it into the ground. Pieces scattered all over the floor and its magic glow went out.

            Then the anvil turned green and hopped across the room at them, at the same time a spear lifted out of its rack and flew at Utsura’s chest.

            And out of the corner of his eye, Utsura was saw the statue in the back of the room heft his battleaxe.

            They were trapped from all sides.

 

XXX

 

            **Sorry to the readers who hate cliffhangers. Ex-Aid made it a habit, though. Anyway if the rooms in the dungeon seem kind of familiar to any retro game buffs out there, there’s a reason why!**


	20. Joining/Cracking

            Like a white lightning bolt the spear shot across the room straight at Utsura’s heart. He lashed out with the Catcher and deflected the magical projectile, deflecting it into a wooden panel where it embedded itself with a hard thunk.

            “Hidenaga! Watch out!” Sling called out to him from behind.

            It was too late. An instant later the huge anvil crashed into his back at what felt like hundreds of miles an hour. The world went silent around him with his body itself screaming in pain before he couldn’t feel anything at all. He saw a brick wall coming at him and then it crumbled when he crashed it going at a speed he could only imagine.

            “HIDENAGA!” Sling screamed and ran for the wall where the other Rider had disappeared when suddenly a huge battleaxe crashed down in front of him. The statue of the grotesque warrior yanked its weapon from where it was wedged in the floor and stomped at Sling.

            The Rider triggered Scorching Kitchen and fired his gun. In a flash his extra armor was over his body once again, his giant chef’s knife clutched over his hand. Without a word the statue swung his axe again and it seemed to get even bigger as it came closer. Sling’s knife flashed out too, aimed at the axe’s long handle. There was a deafening clang as the weapons met and Sling staggered back with his arm trembling from the impact. The statue didn’t recoil at all and just stomped into a good stance for another swing at the Rider’s head.

            This time Sling rolled under it but the statue corrected his swing and brought it over in a downward swing at the Rider’s back. The blade skimmed his side but Sling did everything he could to ignore the pain and dashed back behind the forge, looking desperately for something that looked like it could possibly hurt the stone behemoth. The weird green flames of the forge danced in front of him, seeming to mock him with the power they had, and power he didn’t.

            Power.

            The flame.

            With the hulking statue closing in Sling desperately stabbed his knife into the flames which flickered along the blade. The statue jumped to the ledge in front of the forge and grunted as he lifted his axe again, looking twice as big as when it had attacked the first time. Sling hoped that was just fear for his life. When the statue grunted and swung his axe Sling yelled at the top of his lungs and stabbed with all his strength.

            There was a blinding flash and a blast of sparks that spread fiery particles to all corners of the room. Sling was thrown on his back and could see white through his eyelids even with his mask on.

            After what felt like days Sling croaked, “Hidenaga? You still there?” Panic had started creeping in before Kamen Rider Utsura lurched up and leaned against the opening in the wall he’d made. He limped back into the blacksmith’s room then leaned into the hole in the wall to pick up his Gashacon Catcher. Eventually Sling’s vision cleared enough for him to get to his feet, and he gasped as he saw how his chef’s knife had been half-melted by his clash with the statue.

            “Hidenaga,” Sling said, his throat dry. “We’re not gonna make it if it keeps up like this.”

            “Do we have any choice at this point, though?” Utsura breathed. “If we try to leave we’re just gonna have to fight our way out through something even longer...or, maybe not.”

            He got out one of the white Dr. Mighty Gashats, the ones they’d used to clean up Corrupture-infected locations before. It clicked reassuringly into the handle of the fishing pole and a silver glow spread to the entire weapon when Utsura whipped it around his head, showering the room with glowing motes of dust. They settled into the walls and ground, and the Riders waited for a minute.

            Nothing happened.

            Utsura sighed. “Should’ve known.”

            “Wait a second,” Sling held up his hand for quiet. He got out the miniature Gashat for Ju Ju Burger, the circuit panel on top buzzing and flashing red. He pressed the trigger and a holographic display opened in the air. It was of one of the steel gates that they could just see the faces of a crowd outside through. An oversized drill bit had cleaved an opening through the metal and through it floated Kamen Rider Rune on his hovering platform. He looked down, seeming to notice the Chibi Gamer recording the image.

            “That clown’s finally here,” Sling said, but the tone of his voice was relieved.

            But he didn’t get the chance to feel grateful for long. The room suddenly shook like when they’d been in the room with the trolls, but now the blocks in the floors and walls themselves were grinding against each other.

            The two Riders jumped to the door behind the forge and kicked it open before something else had a chance to happen.

 

XXX

 

            Below, another medieval gate fell and crushed the one Rune had just broken through, sealing the entrance again. His attention was on the hamburger hopping up down near a staircase. That was about the last thing he’d expected to see inside a castle, but when it jumped up the first few steps then around to see if he was following Rune was sure who’d sent it.

            He floated over to the stairs and then started drifting up them after the Chibi Gamer. Looking down at the Battaifield attached to his arm Rune tapped the card he’d set down: the Wall Cracker, a large drill bit on caterpillar treads that had broken him a way into the castle. He twisted the card horizontally and the drill-vehicle flickered away.

            “What were those idiots thinking,” Rune mumbled, following the burger as it hopped up the stairs. “They can’t handle this alone in the shape they’re in.”

            Then again Rune wasn’t so sure he could make up for the two of them. This was a Game Area where their worst enemy had all the advantages. There were ways to make Rune’s monsters more powerful, but there just hadn’t been enough chances for him to get through with them yet. It was so weird adapting the techniques in a Taiceranego game to one where his opponents weren’t under the same rules he was.

            Rune followed the hopping burger through different rooms in this castle. One was a strange U-shaped ramp with the shattered remains of large colorful objects all over the floor and a huge black sphere lodged in a hole in the floor. After that was a room that was basically just a wide shaft, where the burger hopped down to a walkway on a lower lever with Rune floating down to follow. He passed through a devastated blacksmith’s room, then gasped in surprised as he passed through the other door.

            A crackling field of fire covered the entire floor of the long room in front of them and the burger had jumped right off the ledge. But then a long hemp rope, its tip on fire too, swung out and the burger clamped down on the rope between its patties. It hopped off that rope and clamped onto another one, then jumped to one last rope and into the door on the other side.

            He followed down a stone stairway as the burger made large, squelching jumps, taking four steps at a time. Rune drew the two cards he was allowed, not wanting to allow himself to be caught unprepared.

            But how could anybody be prepared in such an insane place?

 

XXX

 

            “Mmmmmph!! Let go already!!”

            “You’re not just running away after saying something like that!” Asuna snapped and grabbed Kiiko’s arm with her other hand too.

            “I take it back!” Kiiko yipped, every patient, doctor and orderly on the floor staring at them by then.

            “That’s not something you get to take back!” Asuna said with exasperation, still shocked by what Kiiko had called her. She managed to swing Kiiko around to where the elevators were and stabbed the down button. Kiiko spent another few seconds pulling away, but gradually seemed to give up and her resistance weakened. As soon as the elevator dinged in arrival Asuna was pushing the girl inside.

            As soon as the doors closed Asuna pushed the “doors close” button, then leaned against it. “Now, what were you saying before? Why were you calling me that?”

            Her question seemed to hang in the air for ages until Kiiko sighed and slumped into a fetal position in the corner. “You know, though, right?” she asked.

            “Why don’t you tell me instead?”

            Clutching the bridge of her nose and sighing in frustration at being put on the spot, Kiiko looked down hard at her shoes, but Asuna didn’t budge, still leaning on the button and looking at her with arms folded. Eventually Kiiko looked up, her teeth clenched slightly. “I was created from part of you. When Kensei-kun’s brother, and the other ones pushed and broke out of the portal in the sky. That makes us kind of like sisters.”

            “That’s probably the best way to describe it,” Asuna nodded patiently.

            Silence covered the elevator again, the two looking over at each, until Kiiko, eyes swimming, blurted out, “I don’t want to be replaced!”

            “…replaced?”

            Words flowed out of Kiiko’s mouth as every thought seemed to come out one after another. “I’ve only been here a little while! I don’t want to be abandoned already! What if Kensei-kun doesn’t need me anymore since you’re here?? What if Kensei-kun doesn’t need me anymore after he starts working with the other Kamen Riders?? What if they don’t need me anymore with those little characters that can search for them now instead?”

Hearing that Asuna knew where it was going, but stayed silent to give Kiiko the chance to get it all out. “What’s going to happen to me if I’m not useful anymore?!” Kiiko wailed.

            Asuna stepped across the elevator. She lightly gripped Kiiko’s shoulder and raised the girl to her feet, then shook her head slowly  and took off her glasses. Maybe fearing her disapproval, Kiiko looked about ready to bolt for the doors when the woman said something that stopped her in her tracks.

            “What kind of friend are you?”

            Kiiko went rigid like a deer in the headlights.

            “Is that all you think you are to them? The navi? Tell me something: why did those three become Riders?” Asuna asked.

            Confronted with a question instead of the attack she’d probably been expecting, Kiiko’s body went a little more lax. “…well, it was because they all had a family member who died in Kamen Rider Chronicle. All of those people picked one of them to be a Rider and fight when new monsters came…”

            “And all three of them didn’t wait to get started, did they?” Asuna asked, her voice lighter.

            Kiiko’s face melted into a look of disbelief. “How did you know?”

            Then Asuna did something Kiiko hadn’t expected at all: she smiled. “I’ve met people kind of like that. At first it seemed like we couldn’t really trust most of them, but deep down all of them wanted to be a Kamen Rider for a selfless reason.” Her face soured suddenly. “Except for _him_ , that is…” Regaining her train of thought, Asuna shook her head and looked at Kiiko, holding out her hand. “People like that won’t just see you like something to throw away when it isn’t useful anymore.”

            “Onee, I…,” Kiiko said, then managed a shaky smile. She reached out and gripped Asuna’s offered hand.

            Then both felt a sharp tingle before the entire elevator flashed white.

 

XXX

 

            The taunting laughter of the black knight faded behind them as the two Kamen Riders crawled back into the castle’s torchlight. Before he even stood up Utsura pulled out his Catcher again, and sighed with relief to see the ghostly blue glow around it gone and it extended automatically to full size. “What about yours?”

            Sling drew his gun, and the nodded as it let out a loud _click_ as its cylinder settled in to place again. “You think he can do make that happen anywhere in this stupid castle of his?” Sling whispered, looking back and forth like he was afraid Kamen Rider Corsair might hear them.

            Before Utsura got to answer suddenly a vase floated down the hallway past them, spilling a trail of shining gold coins. Sling was bending over to pick one up when suddenly his gun was yanked out of his hand and stuck to the side of the vase as it kept floating away from them. At the same time Utsura’s fishing pole was pulled out his hand and stuck to the vase too.

Then suddenly a human-sized lizard, wearing a purple silk robe and golden crown, popped out from a doorway and let out a weird noise like a pleased burble as he waved a golden scepter above his head and hopped their way.

            “Come on!” Utsura barked and chased after the vase, going around a corner and almost slipping on the trail of gold coins as the only thing he looked at was his weapon floating farther way.

            “You think you need to tell _me_?!” Sling yelled but he already knew Utsura wasn’t listening. He ran after the other Rider and flinched as he saw the Lizard King’s scepter just miss coming down on his skull.

            The vase whipped around corners and Utsura’s legs seemed to get heavier, his heart seemed to tighten with every turn he made. Behind him he heard Sling panting too, but even louder was the Lizard King cackling and burbling and his scepter clanging against the walls as he took swipes at them with it.

            Then it seemed like the vase made a wrong turn as it went down a passage with a heavy wood door at the end and smashed itself to pieces at the end, dumping gold coins all over the floor and more importantly, the Riders’ weapons.

            Sling immediately launched himself at his gun and whipped around to face the Lizard King. The second the firing pin clicked back the reptile ruler’s scepter flashed out and caught Sling hard on the side of the head. He leaned to one side drunkenly went down. His enemy jumped over him, scepter raised to finish Sling off.

            And then Utsura jumped between them and blocked the scepter on his fishing pole. The Lizard King laughed in his face, smirking like he was amused to find a victim who thought they could fight back.

            Well, Utsura was going to show him what a mistake that was.

            The Rider suddenly lashed out with a kick that connected with the Lizard King’s stomach and knocked him down the hall. When the evil reptile got his feet underneath him Utsura came swinging at him, the line from his fishing pole wrapped around a wooden beam on the ceiling. The Lizard King leaned back with his scepter, posing like a baseball player as Utsura came at him in a flying kick.

            “ **RIVER CRITICAL STRIKE!** ” A chaotic storm of color erupted around Utsura’s body looking like a whirlpool pushed down by his foot. Letting out a laugh of what sounded strangely like glee the Lizard King swung but his weapon shattered against Utsura’s energized armor just before Utsura himself connected with his kick. There was a boom that echoed down the hall before the Lizard King was knocked off his feet and sent flying after the wave of sound from the attack.

            But as soon as Utsura hit the ground again he collapsed, taking in painful-sounding ragged breaths. It took everything he had to look over to see if Sling was moving after that last hit.

            He wasn’t.

            It felt like he was trying to push a mountain but Utsura dragged his arms out in front of him then tried to drag his body a few inches across the floor.

            “Just a little farther, Rider!” called a voice from above. “It’s only a few miles! I mean, feet!” A snide laugh followed but Utsura could hardly even hear it through his body seeming to scream at him in pain. He could barely even hear that strange tinkling noise that came from right in front of him. How bad was his condition that he was starting to see a sparkling pink ball with little white butterfly wings?

            “Hey!”

            How bad was his condition that it was sounding just like Kiiko?

            “I thought you said Mishiranu was lost,” Sling groaned, so at least he was coming out of it.

            “Listen!” Kiiko’s voice came again, but this time there was a reverb that sounded like another woman’s voice.

            “You can hear that too?” Utsura wheezed. “So I’m not just hallucinating?”

            The ball of light flew around Utsura’s head, its tiny white wings buzzing insistently for his attention. “Hey! LISTEN!!!” it yelled at them again.  Sling sat up and it circled around his head and he tried to swat it away with his hand, but it buzzed angrily and flew quickly to hit him in the forehead. He grunted in annoyance and reached for his gun but the winged ball of light swerved around his hand and hovered in front of Utsura’s face. “It’s me!” the light said, the tone extremely annoyed.

            “Kiiko??” Utsura asked. His pain faded enough for him to sit up. “What happened to you?”

            Another voice was the one that answered. “People aren’t tuning in to watch a boring cutscene!” came the voice of Kamen Rider Corsair from above. The door at the end of the hall opened, and suddenly the floor tilted forward like a slide, dumping the Riders through the door.

            On the other side was a dark chute like the one that’d brought them into castle in the first place. Utsura grabbed for something to stop his slide, but there was nothing there.

 

XXX

 

            Their trip through darkness was gratefully shorter than the one that dropped them into the castle before. The stop wasn’t any less abrupt with them skidding down a hill made of  gold coins with their edges digging into Utsura’s already aching body even through his armor.

            There was more treasure than pixelated gold lying around the huge vault they landed in. Spinning over piles of gold and mounds of jewels were brightly-colored Energy Items, the colors and pictures on some of them ones the Kamen Riders had never seen before.

            And in the middle of the room, over a table made of purple marble with veins of gold decorating the edges, hovered a bright white Rider Gashat. It had a gold hand guard with golden-colored wires sticking up into the circuit panel, and a label showing a bearded knight in white armor.

            Taddle Legacy.

            Utsura struggled to his feet and stumbled closer to the table for the Gashat. The pink fairy-light buzzed in front of his face. “Hey, LISTEN!” Kiiko’s voice blared into his ears. “It’s not real! I don’t feel any power coming from it!”

            This was one of the weirdest things that’d happened to him yet, but Utsura stopped. He picked up a handful of coins and threw them across the room at the Gashat. It flickered as they passed right through hitting nothing.

            “A hologram!” Sling snarled in fury.

            Then suddenly the pile of gold the table rested on shook and a hulking shape shoved the table out its way. Both Riders grabbed for their weapons as the shape stood up: It had a featureless armored face ending in a sharp beak with a crown of bony spikes growing from the top of his head. The left side of his body was red the color of dried blue and the right side a shiny black. Bone spikes of numerous different lengths stuck out from his elbows, waist and shins.

            “GRAPHITE!” the fairy-light exclaimed in Asuna Karino’s voice. “But how could he be—”

            “Fitting for a dragon to guard the castle’s treasure, isn’t it! This is how powerful Machina Vision is!” Kamen Rider Corsair’s voice laughed. “These game monsters are nothing to us! Graphite, finish them off.”

            Grunting angrily, Graphite drew a sword with a long curved tooth for a blade off his back. Utsura clutched his Catcher, his legs badly shaking, but suddenly Sling ran up to Graphite instead. His half-melted chef’s knife flashed out and only made tiny dents in the dragon-man’s armor. For a minute Graphite just stood there and took it, then his sword flashed out and knocked Sling’s knife all the way across the treasure vault.

            Sling’s hand went to his gun instead but Graphite kicked him hard in the chest and knocked Sling somersaulting backwards down the pile of coins. One powerful jump carried the dragon-man down after him.

            “Eat THIS—” Kamen Rider Sling yelled, trying to sound brave as he squeezed the trigger of his gun, but Graphite’s sword knocked his weapon out of his hand. A yell of pain echoed off the walls, and as it did Graphite turned his sword around aimed at Sling’s heart.

            Then he stabbed.

            A strangled gasp was the only sound Sling made before he shot across the room and cracked the wall where he hit. He slumped over on his side, a hole in his chest plate over his heart, smoking from how hard Graphite struck him.

 

XXX

 

            “No…” Utsura said, his throat suddenly dry as a desert. He lifted his fishing pole and was about to swing it to strike.

            Suddenly the room started shaking. “What now?!” Utsura yelled. They were right where Corsair wanted them, though: he wouldn’t be making the castle shake to keep them moving like he had.

            And Utsura was right. Circular cracks formed in the wall behind Graphite and then it crumbled with a huge drill pushing its way into the room. From behind it came Kamen Rider Rune on his hovering platform. “Arise, Rumble Coffin! And arise, Suicide Doll!” he ordered and placed two cards. The monsters rose out of the ground at Rune’s command, but before they could attack Graphite huffed and blew a cloud of fire from his mouth that stopped just a few inches in front of them.

            “Well, looks like there might still be an interesting final boss fight!” Corsair’s voice laughed at this new arrival. “If  your little bomb doll can do anything to something like him with its one shot!” Rune clutched his stomach, and Utsura realized he was chuckling. “What’s so funny?” the voice of Corsair demanded.

            “You don’t play this game. I can tell,” Rune replied. “Taiceranego isn’t just about calling monsters and hope they can do the job for you. It’s about tricks and strategy.” He held up a blue card. “A friend gave me a present. _This_ ,” Rune said triumphantly.

            “Think about that, hmm?” Asuna’s voice said, a little teasingly. The fairy-light trembled lightly in what might’ve been annoyance.

            Rune slapped down the card on the Battaifield on his arm, covering the other two. “I invoke Arcane Polymerization!”

            The Rumble Coffin and Suicide Doll broke apart with ribbons of pixels floating off their edges and into the space between the two monsters. Another shape rapidly formed, one of a brown wooden cube on four skinny mechanical legs each ending in a bird-like foot. On the front and back were a pair of double doors, and across the top was carved an image of two helmeted warriors with crossed spears facing off with each other.

            “Arise, the War Room!” Rune announced.

            “The _what_??” Corsair exclaimed, sounding honestly taken by surprise.

            Graphite whirled his dragon-tooth sword in a vertical circle in front of him, probably waiting for Rune to make the first move. The Gashacon Catcher hung more heavily than he ever remembered it, but Utsura was ready to attack until the fairy-light swerved right up in front of him.

            “Those are all rare items around here,” Kiiko’s voice interrupted him. “We should take the chance to get some while Dasao’s keeping the monster busy.”

            “All right, but this _better_ not be some kind of trick,” Utsura warned.

            “How could you think I’m trying to trick you?” Kiiko’s voice whined from the fairy-light.

            “Mishiranu-san, he’s never seen you this way before,” Asuna Karino’s voice gently pointed out. “You said you didn’t know what was happening.”

            He slid down a slope of coins for one of the gold Energy Items, wondering if his life would just keep getting weirder and weirder the longer he was a Kamen Rider.

            It probably would.

            Across the room, Graphite reared back his head and spewed another blast of fire at Rune’s new monster. The War Room scrambled out of the way on its shiny metal legs but Graphite tracked it with his flaming blast and singed the edge. Suddenly War Room crouched, jumped and in midair totally inverted itself so its feet attached to the ceiling.

            The bizarre robot scuttled to just above Graphite and extended its legs so that its doors were positioned right over his head.

            And then they opened.

            A swarm of monstrous toys—bats, spiders, tiny dragons, creepy bridal dolls with mouths full of knife-like teeth, all with wind-up keys in their backs—dropped out and landed all over Graphite’s body. At the same second their keys all stopped turning, then the dolls exploded with surging orange and black fireballs.

            The dragon-man staggered around blinded for a few seconds by being caught in the middle of the blast. He slashed around with his sword at where he’d last seen War Room but the nimble robot had already crawled across the ceiling and dropped back to the floor. Graphite recovered enough to stare down his opponent then reared back to spew his fire again.

            And again the War Room’s doors snapped open and this time one flying toy came out. A sneering vampire bat landed right on Graphite’s nose, cackled like a lunatic and exploded. The fireball knocked Graphite flat on his back and sent gold coins pelting everywhere, a few flying gold pieces nicking War Room’s wooden finish. Graphite sat and up spewed flame again, but only a tiny foot-long jet came.

            “Not a bad trick, Rider,” Corsair’s voice called out.

            “You’ll be in _real_ trouble when I show you my _good_ ones!” Rune chuckled. He whipped another card off his deck and laid it on an open panel. “Arise, Loremaster!” Spinning slowly as it appeared was the legless Loremaster robot, who hovered over War Room and started reciting in some incomprehensible language. A cone of light shined out of the metal point where his torso ended and War Room seemed to stand up straight and look more alert.

            Graphite launched himself at War Room and crashed into the strange robot’s front doors, pushing down with his armored hands to keep them shut but the doors clattered in protest as they tried to force themselves open. Graphite slammed one hand right on in the middle to pin both of them as he raised his sword with his other hand to smash War Room to bits.

            Without warning a heavy silver fish hook caught him under his upraised arm. Across the room Utsura slapped a button on the Catcher rapidly to reel him in, Loremaster hovering over his head and bathing Utsura in his empowering light. Graphite growled and pulled back trying to free his arm.

            Then it fell off.

            Ringing from the gold coins bouncing off each other seemed louder than before as the severed arm rolled down them, the wires sticking out from the top joint hissing and vomiting sparks all the way down. The broken motor mechanism sticking out of Graphite’s shoulder whirred pointlessly as it thought he was bringing his weapon down on his enemy.

            “He’s FAKE!” Asuna’s voice exclaimed.

            “More than that, he’s vulnerable,” Rune replied and spun the knob on his Battaifield weapon.

            “ **CARD CRITICAL FINISH!** ” it roared. War Room’s doors flew wide open and the head of a clockwork woman with white hair and withered skin, along with visible joints in its neck stretched out. The doll’s head reared back, then thrust its neck straight ahead—

—and opened its jaws to breathe a cone of snow that covered the Graphite robot in a sheet of ice. With a sound like shattering glass echoing off the walls it fell apart.

“Your fire couldn’t melt my ice! Suck it, Machina Vision!” Rune crowed in victory.

            “See if you can make it out before you’re buried, then, GENM!” Corsair’s voice snarled. The threat had barely even finished before the walls and ceiling started to shake, bricks collapsing in and knocking piles of coins into the air.

            “Here, out this way!” Rune yelled, waving through the tunnel he’d dug when he made his entrance.

            The fairy-light darted around urgently in a circle around Utsura’s head. “No, not that way! It’s already caved in!” Kiiko’s voice declared. It flew over to a wall where a torch fixture hung. “This is a secret way out!”

            Utsura bent down to pick up Sling, who still wasn’t moving. He groaned in pain and dropped Sling again, but the War Room robot skittered over, lifted Sling on top of it with two legs then held him there with one as it followed him to the torch holder. In desperation he twisted the torch and a door into a stairway opened.

 

XXX

 

            Barely a minute later the castle caved in on itself with huge clouds of pixelated dust billowing up from the block it’d covered. Kamen Rider Utsura flew up out of the disaster area on the back of a huge catfish that swam through the sky, Rune on his floating platform right next to him, and the pink fairy light glowing brighter than ever. None of them looked back, and none saw the silhouette of the small pirate ship sailing away into the night sky. As the huge clouds of dust cleared a regular street was left behind.

            The fairy-light banked to the right, Asuna’s voice commanding, “Back to Seito right away!”

            “After we get there, you can explain what the heck happened to you two,” Utsura muttered.

            “I wish I knew, Hidenaga-san,” Asuna replied.

            “I’m not having fun either, stuck in here,” Kiiko added.

            Utsura sat down, sighing with stinging pain and exhaustion. “Hey, does it seem weird to anyone else that the Graphite we fought back there was just some kind of robot, but nothing else was?”

            Rune gave a snide little chuckle. “They’re not as powerful as they want people to think, I bet.”

            “I sure hope you’re right,” Utsura answered as they drifted over the skyline back to Seito University Hospital. “Because we’re gonna be finding out soon…”

 

XXX

 

**Another chapter out, and Machina Vision shows its secret weapons, but are those the only ones? And will the New GENM Riders be in any shape to deal with more when they come?**

 

**Anyway, thanks to the arcade classic _Dragon’s Lair_ where the traps and enemies from the dungeon were stolen from, with special mention going to Best Villain, the Lizard King. A royal lizard who sings while he tries to bash your head in, what’s not to love?**

**The puffy purple “trolls” Utsura and Sling fought last chapter were none other than the game’s most memorable enemies, the Giddy Goons. You’ll forgive me for not finding an in-story reason to call them that, though! XD**


	21. Countdown to...Zero?

            The lights of Seito University Hospital’s familiar sign looked like the gates of heaven as Kamen Rider Utsura came in for a landing outside the emergency room entrance. The two med techs who came rushing out didn’t seem surprised at all to see their patient draped over the back of a giant catfish who turned his head and gave them a measuring look, whiskers drooping onto the asphalt.

            “What happened to this one?” asked one while the other bent down to examine the unconscious teen Utsura had been escorting to the hospital.

            “Got hurt by some trap or something inside that video game castle downtown,” Utsura answered.

            The man nodded. “I heard about that. Anyone else get hurt in there?”

            “No,” Utsura replied with a shake of his head, and sighed. “He was the only one.”

            “Did you get this kid’s name, mister?”

            Utsura nodded. “Yeah. His name’s Yoshoku Kasuga.”

            Suddenly a pink ball of light with shimmering fairy wings flew in between them, leaving a trail of shining dust that made the med tech cough. “Hey! Listen!” a girl’s voice commanded from it.

            “I see you, Kii-chan,” Utsura said, patiently but obviously very tired. The ball of light made two sounds at the same time, a confused grunt and a soft feminine chuckle. “What’s going on?” Utsura asked.

            “It’s the monster with the all plugs!”

            “The Amal Corrupture?”

            The light swirled urgently around Utsura’s head. “Whatever! We just saw him about to steal another game!”

            “Please take care of things here,” Utsura said to the med worker, who nodded. Then Utsura’s giant catfish rose into the sky, following after the ball of light.

 

XXX

 

            A country road edged in by pixelated cherry trees had formed over a four-way intersection, and Utsura could see from the air that traffic backed up for three blocks in any direction. The closest cars had skidded off at angles to avoid driving into the Game Area.

            He started circling down, lowering his fishing pole off his shoulder to be ready to fight. A dark shape appeared floating next to him against the darkening sky, but Utsura knew he didn’t have to worry about an attack from its owner.

            “Let me handle this,” Rune admonished his fellow Kamen Rider.

            “I’ll be fine,” Utsura replied while the ground got bigger and bigger underneath them.

            “You had trouble standing up not too long ago,” Rune said just loudly enough to be heard. “If your body’s that strained—”

            “I’ll be fine,” Utsura repeated. “I used one of those items from the treasure room back there to heal myself. I got the rest right here,” he said, holding up a dented bait box. The catfish he was standing on landed in the middle of the transformed streets. Just off to the side of the road ahead was a four-pillared gazebo that had a Rider Gashat with a black case hovering inside it. At that distance he could just barely read the name: Giri Giri Chambara.

            Reaching out for it was the familiar black and grey-armored form of the Amal Corrupture, his smooth black dome of a face turning to look the Rider up and down before he grabbed for his prize again.

            “Hold it right there!” a voice called out to stop him. Utsura sighed as he recognized Rune floating down on his platform, his spiked frills of hair still swaying from coming down so quickly between the two of them. Was he that determined to keep Utsura out of this fight if he could? “Arise, War Room!” he commanded and laid down the new card showing the spider-like robot. A large wooden box appeared on the ground and a thin metal leg unfolded out of each corner.

            But Rune wasn’t done and laid down another card from his hand. “Arise, Sage Drake! Wielder of the Daggers of the Word!” A wireframe shape of an animal with stubby legs, a long tail and neck formed. Waves of light passed over it and filled it into the shape of a blue-scaled dragon wearing a pair of eyeglasses balanced on the tip of its snout.

            Seeing Rune’s forces appearing the Amal Corrupture stuck a white Gashat into his shoulder. He let out harsh a metallic growling sound, sending arcs of poisonous-looking purple energy shooting out from his body into the ground. Immediately withered green hands pushed out of the dirt and a group of four Corrupture Cells dressed in battered, grime-smeared samurai armor climbed out, tarnished kabuto helmets perched unsteadily on their large purple virus-heads.

            “Attack!” Rune commanded his monsters.

Sage Drake fixed his bronze-colored eyes on the Cells next and the lenses of his glasses flickered with light. Yellow runes of numerous shapes streamed out from the dragon’s eyes  slammed into them like a wall and knocked the Cells somersaulting backwards with painful-sounding creaks and cracks from their undead bodies.

The War Room opened the doors on the front of the box at its center. It sprayed porcelain geisha dolls into the air like missiles, and like missiles they exploded in billowing fireballs against the Corrupture Cells. Helmets and patches of their crusty armor went flying. Another group of geisha dolls came out, exploding against the minions just like before. With loud pops the Cells were reduced to clouds of purple smoke.

            “All right!” Rune yelled and pumped his arm back in victory.

            “Not bad,” Utsura said. Rune looked back and chortled.

            Then the purple clouds solidified into green-skinned zombies again. Amal looked over their shoulders at the Riders and made an echoing metal sound that sounded almost like laughter. Amal held the Giri Giri Chambara catrdige up high in one clawed hand as if to taunt the Riders, then plugged it into his leg, making a pair of yellow scythes with serrated pink edges appear in his hands

Amal swung his weapons from out at his sides to right in front of him in a scything motion. The Riders stared in disbelief as the monster hacked through his own followers, reducing them to puffs of smoke. The smoke spread and solidified again, and this time there were twice as many zombie samurai with shiny purple egg-heads facing them down.

            Then the Cells came closing in on the two Riders, waving rusty wakizashi or just their bare hands.

            Immediately the War Room jumped to its right and Sage Drake scuttled to his left to cover a wider field of fire as they launched a bombardment. Dolls flew and hugged the arms of the Cells before exploding while runic letters of all shapes shot out of the dragon’s eyes, stabbing and battering the attackers.

            A blue and yellow blur streaked through the air next to Rune’s platform as he considered his next move, making him gasp as he realized it was Utsura holding his fishing pole in both hands and going right over the Cells’ heads. “Idiot, are you trying to break yourself or something?!” Rune called, but the other Rider ignored him. Rune had enough to worry about on his own as the Cells exploded under his monsters’ attacks, but again they reformed and divided into even more of their kind.

            Utsura landed beyond the gang of Cells, the Amal Corrupture standing there as if waiting for him. “Give the games back now, let’s try to do this without a fight for once,” Utsura offered, but doubting it would do any good. Suddenly Amal lunged, swiping his scythes down at Utsura’s shoulders. The Rider had been expecting it and lifted his fishing pole in both hands to block both blades like a staff.

            The tip of Utsura’s shoe connected with an armor-free patch of Amal’s midriff. A small grunt of surprise was the only response from his attack, but before Amal could counterattack Utsura’s oversized fish hook caught under his arm and yanked him off the ground. He flew over Utsura’s head as the line from his fishing pole stretched out then crashed down again hard. Hard enough to scatter Rider Gashats all over the ground.

            Utsura went diving for the closest one, Mighty Brothers XX. His fingers were an inch away from the grip when suddenly he stopped moving. Two Cells had grabbed him by the shoulders and were dragging him away, before two more of them grabbed his legs

            Amal rolled over onto his front, got his feet underneath him and ran around gathering up his dropped games. Desperate not to let a chance like that slip away Utsura forced his hands together and slapped the buttons on the handle of his fishing pole.

            In a flash of light the hook had changed into a weighted bobber Utsura swung in a circle around himself. The bobber slammed into the heads of the two Cells clutching his arms, knocking them on their backs. Letting out a yell Utsura jumped and went into a roll forward throwing off the Cells grabbing his legs.

            Free of the pests he turned back to find Amal, but the Corrupture was running away down to the edge of the Game Area. Glancing over his shoulder, Amal held up a bright yellow Gashat and triggered it, making a bright yellow motorcycle appear in front of him that he climbed onto and zoomed away.

            Utsura considered going after him for a second but looked his shoulder to see if Rune was in trouble first. The other Rider’s monsters were firing at the undead Cells, who popped into clouds like they had before that sank into crack in the ground it could reach.

            When Utsura looked back to where he’d seen Amal, the monster was nowhere in sight.

 

XXX

 

            “You see him?” Rune asked.

            “No, I don’t see him,” Ustura grunted in frustration as they passed each other after making another circle from the air. “What about you?”

            “Nothing,” Kiiko’s voiced sighed from the ball of light. “It’s like he just disappeared.”

            “Are we sure he can’t?” Rune proposed. “Never really seen a monster like him before.”

            The ball of light made a thoughtful sound. “I kind of have,” Asuna said a little distantly.

            “Guess we should clean up that mess down there,” Utsura said, loading a Doctor Mighty Gashat into his fishing pole.

            In its usual enthusiastic voice the Gashacon Catcher announced, “ **Doctor Mighty Critical Finish!** ” Utsura whirled the line out in a wide circle, scattering a storm of rainbow-colored particles from the trail of his hook all over the country roads and cherry trees lining the street. After a minute the power was spent and Utsura reeled his hook back in.

            “Hidenaga, look!” Rune called, pointing down. Utsura looked.

            The cherry tree-lined country roads were still there.

            “Maybe we’re too high up,” Rune suggested.

            “Yeah, maybe,” Utsura sighed softly, getting more annoyed at how long the day was turning out. “Let’s try it from lower down.”

 

XXX

 

            The fourth blackened, spent Doctor Mighty Gashat bounced as it hit the street. Utsura was standing right in the middle of where the Game Area spread out from. Over his head the branches of cherry trees swayed in a breeze that ended at the edge of the Game Area, shedding a few loose petals onto the Kamen Rider’s shoulders and hat. The line on his Catcher was sizzling faintly from all the power it had released, all for nothing.

            “That was the last one I had,” Utsura sighed. “What the hell’s going on here?”

            “I don’t know,” Rune shrugged, sounding a little helpless. “When has a Game Area ever stuck around after the fight?”

            “Yeah well, when did Cells ever come back to life and split into new ones from getting hit?” Utsura muttered. “I had a chance to get back a bunch of the games he stole, but those things jumped me and he got away again.”

            Rune floated down and pulled his game free from the device on his arm where it was connected. In a soft flash of light his armor was gone. Another flash followed and Utsura was gone too, reverting once again to Kensei Hidenaga.

            Doku looked up at the the winged ball of light fluttering around their heads. “What about her, though? Them? Which is it?”

            The light circled around the two of them, then there was a sound like glass cracking before Kiiko and Asuna formed next to them. Both staggered around for a few steps. Kensei reached out to catch Kiiko while Asuna steadied herself on her own. It was a minute of Kiiko sucking in short breaths before she stepped back and managed to stay up on her own, as if whatever had happened to them had been harder on her than on Asuna.

            “Are you okay?” Kensei asked to Kiiko’s back. “What was that?”

            “It was so intense,” Asuna breathed. “It was like we were just one person, but it was like we _were_ the Game Area at the same time while we were in there.”

            “He asked _me_ ,” Kiiko interrupted with a sigh and turned back around, but Asuna only snickered.

            “Well, sure. Are you okay?” Kensei repeated, smiling a little at Asuna’s reaction.

            Kiiko shrugged and said, “I’m fine. I’m tough, remember?” Asuna snickered a little louder and hid her mouth behind her hand.

            Kensei walked over to Kiiko and patted her strongly between the shoulders, smiling across at her. “You sure are,” he said, and Kiiko stepped ahead abruptly, probably so he wouldn’t see the pink glow to her cheeks that was suddenly there. That only made Asuna snicker one more time, but Kiiko seemed too distracted to notice the woman’s reaction.

            “Look, maybe we should go check on Kasuga?” Doku sighed. “God, this night just gets more and more confusing…”

            “It’s probably not going to get any easier,” Kensei gently pointed out from his own exhaustion at what had happened.

            “Don’t remind me, okay?” Doku grumbled.

 

XXX

 

            The monitors in the wall went blank one by one. The blinds to the window that made up the entire rear wall slid closed. Ayatsu Shuugouteki didn’t want any distractions for the conversation he was about to have.

            Even though he already knew better, with the person he was expecting in his office any minute.

            There was a heavy knock at the door and Ayatsu linked his fingers in front of his face before he answered: “Come in.”

            The door opened and through it came a huge man with a thin little beard and a buzzcut on his smooth round head, wearing opaque sunglasses and a featureless black suit. “There’s no-one in here but me, Kedamono,” Ayatsu said. “Just show him in.”

            A quick nod was the huge man’s only response. He stepped aside, and let Suihei Shuugouteki step through the door, a frustrated scowl on his young face. Suihei sat down and shoved his arms together over his chest.

            “Didn’t go so well, did it?” Ayatsu said slowly.

            “Hey, if you’re going to assign blame, what about Maximum Inc. and that crappy android they built?” Suihei immediately responded, probably having been going over what he’d say the entire trip to their headquarters.

             “I’m sure you’re not telling me it was a bad idea to show them a fearsome enemy,” Ayatsu replied darkly. “That Graphite character was one of the worst ones the other Kamen Riders ever fought.”

            Suihei visibly winced away from his father’s reprimand but forced the scowl back onto his face. “What good’s a fearsome enemy if it falls apart easier than the original? Those cheap American androids…”

            He almost fell out of his chair and Kedamono’s head whipped forward to see what was going on, before both of them realized Ayatsu was laughing, not yelling. “Cheap American androids! Good lord, what a thing to say!...You always were the spirited one, Suihei-san.”

            “I…ah, thank you, sir,” Suihei replied, still a little shaken from his father’s unexpected outburst, even if it _had_ been a laugh.

            Ayatsu rested his chin in his hand and tapped his fountain pen against the top of his desk. “Still, there’s no way we can use that display back in the castle as proof of our company’s superiority to GENM’s Riders. It seems like you’re more valuable as a fighter than the one controlling the Game Area after all.”

            Suihei’s smile went rigid.

            “So next time we record a battle, you’ll be helping our forces directly instead,” Ayatsu went on.

            “Sir, is this really necessary—”

            “ _Yes_ ,” Ayatsu cut his son off sharply. “If we’re going to succeed in our plan, we have to get the people to trust us. We have to make sure they think of Machina Vision as the only ones who can deal with this Corrupture problem. You know that, you’ve heard it a thousand times. Suihei, I’ve given you one of the most critical parts to play, show some pride in that.”

            His son’s fidgeting in his seated lasted for a few seconds before Suihei managed to form a reply. “Of course, sir. For our greatest goal.”

            Ayatsu nodded grimly. “Always. For our greatest goal.”

 

XXX

 

            It was almost like they hoped the force of their combined stares would get Yoshoku to move as he lay in a hospital bed, but the youth was completely motionless despite his allies looking over him.

            “How bad is it?” Kensei was the first one to ask.

            Slowly Asuna stepped away from the rest of the group. “I’ll see if I can ask someone and find out,” she stated, looking over the other three before she turned and walked out of the room.

            Once she was gone Kensei turned around and faced Doku. “Maybe you can explain something to me,” Kensei said, a harsh edge to his voice that Doku thought seemed out of place coming from him.

            “…what’s that?” Doku asked, bracing himself for what might be coming next.

            There was a glint of anger in Kensei’s eyes, but it quickly faded. “Look, when we were in the castle and I started giving out from the poison in my arm, Yoshoku had a bunch of healing items already that he used on me. I was sure he’d been saving those. Do you know why he would’ve done that?”

            Doku sank into a chair and sighed before he answered. “Because we knew how bad you were getting. Between the poison spreading and your body wearing out from using the glove too much to power you up.”

            “We?”

            “Yeah…him and me,” Doku nodded. “So we started stocking up on those healing items. We were hoping if we got enough, it might be able to heal you instead.”

            Kiiko slapped Doku across the shoulder. “Why didn’t you say so before??” she demanded before Kensei could ask himself.

            “Because we didn’t know if it would work, okay?!” Doku snapped back. “You’d been getting so bad lately, we didn’t want to get Hidenaga’s hopes up before we were sure it would actually do anything.”

            “So…you didn’t tell me because you were afraid of giving me false hope, or something?” Kensei asked, his voice gentle again.

            Doku waved his hand back and forth at the question. “I tried to imagine what it’d be like if that happened to me, and I just couldn’t deal with the thought of that. I just thought it’d be best if…we couldn’t really figure out how to explain it without allowing for how it might not work. I mean, those were _healing_ items, but poison’s a _status effect_ —”

            He stopped talking abruptly as Kensei looked out the window, the others looking at him quizzically until he shrugged and replied, “I guess I hadn’t really thought about it,” Kensei said.

            “…you hadn’t _thought_ about it?” Kiiko asked, her jaw dropping.

            That made Kensei chuckle as he shrugged. “It hurts like hell sometimes, but I figured soon we’ll get the old Riders to help, and they’ll help us figure out what to do. Didn’t really think about how I might lose my arm or something that bad.”

            Doku slumped back even harder in the chair. “I don’t believe it. Somebody like you can’t really exist, Hidenaga,” he breathed.

            Next to him Kiiko shook her head, but she was smiling. “That’s the game’s hero for you,” she said with the tone of it being confirmation of what she already knew.

            Kensei shrugged again, but smiled. “Look, we know it works at least kind of, right? Shouldn’t we be focusing on something else, like what we’re going to do about Machina Vision? Or how now it seems like we can’t kill Corrupture Cells anymore?” He saw Asuna lean her head back inside the door and she was staring hard at him. “Uh, sorry, I say something?”

            “You said something about monsters you can’t kill?”

            Doku nodded. “Yeah, that monster who use Gashats when he plugs them into themselves. He got this one that lets him create zombies, and they just come back to life after they die now.”

            Asuna nodded slowly, fearfully. “Did you notice what the name of that game was?”

            “Yeah,” Doku said. “It was Dangerous Zombie.”

            She nodded again. “I remember that. It made Kuroto so he always came back to life…but then Emu-kun got a Gashat that let him rewrite Bugster code and took that power away.”

            “We don’t have any games that do that,” Kiiko pointed out.

            “It would only work for Emu anyway,” Asuna replied but still looked away thoughtfully. “That just means we need to get something else that can fight zombies.” She looked up at the three, meeting their uncertain expressions.

            “And I know where to find it,” she said.

 

XXX

 

            That had been all Asuna had said about her plan, just that she had an idea and needed to go talk to someone to make sure she was right.

            Then the three of them left the hospital, not talking about much before they broke apart on their own ways home. To Kensei’s relief the house was dark and there was a note on the kitchen table waiting for him when he got there, saying his mother would be out late with some of her old university friends. After a day that exhausting, telling her every detail about his newest adventure wasn’t something he was ready to face.

            Although that made him wonder with, as dangerous as things were getting, he should be telling anyone besides outside the people who actually helped fight.

            Thoughts like that didn’t make for easy sleep, but to Kensei’s relief the pain from his arm stayed down for most of the night. It was lunch before he had to use the Mighty Hand to inject himself with a boost of power to force down the pain from his poisoned wound.

            To his surprise, as Kensei was sucking in slow breaths to beat down the last of the pain, he heard another plate slide onto the table where he’d been sitting alone. It was Doku, who ripped the wrapper off a serving of melon bread.

            “Do you think we should tell Kasuga’s parents?” he asked, a worried undertone to the question Kensei didn’t remember ever hearing from him before.

            “The hospital must’ve called them already when he showed up there in a coma,” Kensei coughed.

            “Not about that, genius,” Doku said, but he laughed a little. “I mean, do you think we should tell them about him being a Rider. So they know _how_ he ended up in the hospital.”

            “I don’t know,” Kensei replied. “I mean, that’s not really our secret to tell.”

            “Yeah, you’re right…” Doku trailed off. He wolfed down his bread, then a thoughtful look covered his face. “Hey, where’s Mishiranu? Isn’t she always with you?”

            Kensei shook his head and shrugged. “She said she had something to do. I think she went to talk about helping Asuna-san with whatever she’s doing. I hope she has a great idea. I mean, GENM’s in deep shit, right?”

            Doku nodded. “What can we do, though? Corsair tried to trick us with a fake game and a fake old monster. They’ve got to be up to something, and we should find out what.”

            “Why, though? Shouldn’t we be focusing on saving people from the Corrupture? Think about last night: that Game Area from yesterday’s still there, I checked. They’ve even been directing traffic around it. Obviously the Corrupture are getting stronger.”

            Doku stroked his chin. “But what can we really do without stronger games or knowing where to find them? Asuna-san has a plan, let’s wait and see what that is.”

            He started in surprise as he realized Kensei was chuckling. “What’s so funny?”

            “Us,” Kensei answered with a grin.

            “Us?” Doku asked. “What about us?”  
            “Just listen to us,” Kensei chuckled again. “When we started doing all this, we were trying to beat _each other_ to get recognized. Now we’re doing it to stop Machina Vision from getting recognition.”

            Doku glared at him. “They’re up to something!”

            “And here we are, sitting around a table talking about how we’re going to do something about them like friends or something,” Kensei smiled lightly.

            Hearing that, Doku sat down hard in his chair, and he laughed quietly. “It feels kind of weird to hear that out loud,” he said, looking down at his hands, then looking up to meet Kensei’s eyes. “It kind of _is_ like a game, you know,” he mused. “The underdog heroes with a million-to-one shot at stopping the big strong villains with the doomsday weapon or the legendary power, or whatever.” He paused. “They even took out one of our guys…”

            Kensei gripped Doku’s shoulder. Hard. “No, they didn’t. Yoshoku got hurt, but he isn’t gone. Not for good. And we owe it to him…we owe it to _ourselves_ to keep going to find out what’s really going on here.”

            And it Doku’s turn to chuckle lightly. “Not getting your arm fixed? Not because we all have someone who made sure we got something so that we’d be able to fight?”

            “I’m trying to think in terms of the big picture,” Kensei replied. “I figure that’s what a real superhero should do.”

            “Who said we’re not real superheroes?” Doku asked.

            Both laughed. Then their phones rang at the same time. “Hello?” both answered together.

            “Meet us at GENM headquarters,” Asuna told Doku.

            “You have a new power-up!” Kiiko exclaimed, almost knocking Kensei down with how loud she squealed.

 

XXX

           

            The feeling of his armor forming around his body was strange, after the power of being connected to every part of the Game Area like he’d been last time.

            Yet, when Suihei—or rather, Kamen Rider Corsair—clenched a fist around the familiar hilt of his cutlass, he knew beyond a doubt it was the type of power he preferred. Inch-long spikes sprouted from the front of the blade, and he grinned behind his mask. The upgrades to his Gashat had worked.

            “I _am_ Level 35 now!”

            “That _is_ good news! Our little drama needs a dashing hero for the people to adore, doesn’t it?” asked another voice over his shoulder.

Corsair scowled inside his mask. “Jealous father gave me that role?” he asked.

Walking across the empty quarry behind him was another man, looking a few years older than Suihei with the same smooth aristocratic features and superior angle to his smile. He wore a dark suit with a blue shirt and white tie, but he was sporting a thin beard and mustache. Around his waist, over his suit jacket, he wore a black belt with a bright green plastic box on the side. A label on the front in tilted pink lettering said “Machina Brainer.”

In his hand was a Rider Gashat with two circuit panels side by side. The label showed a rollercoaster car with a grinning demon’s face painted on the front going through a loop-the-loop. Above it was a logo that said “Scream Park.”

“You’ve always been a great athlete, little brother. But there’s more to running a business than doing poses for ads,” the man said.

            “Just load that stupid game and let’s start the test, Senjou,” Corsair growled, and that only made the man grin. He loaded the Scream Park cartridge into the box on his belt and hit its switch.

            “ **Welcome all thrillseekers!  Traipse the midway! I WANT TO RIDE THE BIG COASTER MOM!!!** ”

            Immediately a bubble of light surrounded Senjou’s body. The ground around his feet change to a bright pink and started to spread outward from him in a spiral. A two-floor merry-go-round with dragons and butterflies alongside the horses on its poles formed behind him. A snack stand jumped out of the ground over to his right, a cotton candy maker whirring noisily.

            More and more attractions of an amusement park popped up all over the quarry. The circular shape of a Ferris wheel formed and started spinning in front of them. Off to their left was the towering structure of a giant drop ride. An elevated spinning ride with cars shaped like rocketships pushed itself skyward.

            Almost as a finishing touch the twisting frame of a rollercoaster’s tracks rose and dipped as the wireframe solidified into the hills and loops just in front of the car shooting along it at high speed.

            Senjou looked down at his watch and smiled. “All that in eleven seconds! Beat the projections by three!”

            “You’ll be really helpful the next time father needs a theme park designed in less than a minute,” Corsair muttered.

            His brother ignored the remark, still too pleased at the speed with which he’d created the amusement park around them. “See how high you can jump now. Try it over by the giant drop ride over there,” Senjou instructed.

            Grumbling to himself, Corsair ran over to the spot his brother had pointed out. As he crossed an open street there was suddenly an explosion in front of him that tossed Cosair on his back.

             “Senjou, if this is some stupid joke—” Corsair snarled, but then saw the explosion had nothing to do with his brother.

            Standing on top of the grinning face of a clown framing the door to the funhouse, there was a figure in a black bodysuit. Over his torso was a purple chestplate with a neon green crosshairs designs glowing a shiny oblong screen across the armor. Over the front of the armor on his shoulders was a blue number 0. Giant purple-colored eyes peered out of his mask over a shiny purple mouthplate, the rest smooth and featureless except for a metal ring attached to the back. Thin plates of purple armor covered his shins and knees over armor like track shoes on his feet. Another Kamen Rider.

            And in his hand was a golden pistol with a long barrel.

            Aimed right at Corsair’s head.

            “It’s impossible,” Corasir gasped, “you’re dead…”

            In a mechanically distorted voice he said, “Hand over those games you filthy thieves, or I’ll kill you both.”

            His finger tightened around the trigger.


	22. Timing of Strike

            The tip of the Rider’s gun blazed and Corsair was rolling onto his side before the ground next to him erupted. He could feel the heat from the terrific explosion even through his armor.

            But he wasn’t some kind of amateur. Corsair somersaulted onto his feet, aiming his flintlock pistol at his unexpected attacker. The front now had a figurehead of a woman with long hair hanging down over her chest holding up the longer barrel, and Corsair fired a burst of three shots. In midair the bullets expanded to the size of a human fist.

            Corsair’s opponent dashed across the roof of the funhouse as his bullets exploded into clouds of fire behind him. The third and last shot went off right behind the black-armored Rider who threw himself forward as the flames brushed against his back. He went clear over the side of the building, holding his hands out in front of them as he neared the ground then went into an effortless roll forward onto his feet and immediately took off in a run. He was bent forward with arms tucked against his sides for less resistance, the only thing showing he wasn’t just a flickering shadow was the golden plating on the gun in his hand.

            The Rider swerved along the main path parallel to the curve of the huge rollercoaster tracks. Suddenly two parents and a little girl with blurred-out faces appeared right in front of him, and inside his mask Corsair smiled since he recognized them as hazards generated by the Game Area. Despite showing up suddenly they weren’t just part of the scenery.

            It seemed like the intruder knew this too, as he jumped and landed with one foot on the father’s shoulder and vaulted off, the family of sprites looking up after him in simulated surprise. He aimed his gun at Corsair as he flipped through space, both weapons screaming their shots out at the same time.

            A blocky fireball went up as their projectiles went off near each other. Corsair clutched both weapons and took a calculated risk. He jumped into the thinning cloud of the explosion. the display in his mask showed a wireframe display of the Rider’s trajectory based on the speed they’d been going predicted he would be. And that was where Corsair stabbed his sword with all of his might

            He felt the blade hit something but there was a unsettling *CLANG* sound instead of the exaggerated noise of impacts conjured up by the game effects of their powers. The smoke from the explosion finished blowing away and he saw the other Kamen Rider was indeed right in front of him, but had pulled the barrel off his golden gun. Sticking out of one end was the blade of a knife, and that was what he’d blocked Corsair’s sword on.

            “It’s not enough GENM’s got a bunch of new weakling Riders trying to save it, they’re desperate enough to let _you_ fight for them too!” Corsair snarled.

            “I’m not interested in what you think of me,” the other Rider said, his voice electronically distorted like before.

            “You lost once, Dan,” Corsair said. “I’ll finish you for good now.”

            His opponent didn’t respond to his taunt, and mentally Corsair choked for a second. Dan never would’ve stayed silent if someone tried to call him out. In that moment of distraction his opponent snatched a glass pellet from his belt and tossed it into Corsair’s face.

 

XXX

 

            A cloud of smoke hissed out of the tiny capsule and in less than a second Corsair couldn’t see anything else. He swung his cutlass back and forth with all his heightened strength, but hit nothing.

            “Senjou, where did he go?!” Corsair called out.

            “I’m checking every feed I can see, little brother,” answered a voice in his mask’s earpiece. “That smoke’s thicker than you can tell from in there.”

            Corsair knew better than to wait around blindly for a mysterious attacker to come to him, though. He crouched and jumped as high as he could. The smoke thinned out a few feet over his head and then he was through. Below him Corsair could see the smoke billing out for almost thirty feet in all direction, and immediately he fired away with his flintlock into the obscured area trying to hit _something_.

            As gravity asserted itself on Corsair the smoke cleared but craters from his high-powered shots were the only sign of a fight to be seen.

            “Where did he go?!” Corsair demanded.

            “Up! On the track!” Senjou’s voice replied. He looked up and running along the rail for the rollercoaster track was the black Kamen Rider. Corsair jumped after him, landed on the scaffolding most of the way up and cleared the rest of the distance to the track in one more jump.

            He saw a bullet from the golden gun coming his way as he got to the top, and he raised his cutlass to block the shot on the flat of its blade. The bullet bounced off, but left a dent in the blade big enough for Corsair to see it on the side facing him. He couldn’t help cringing. How powerful was this enemy? None of the other GENM Riders came close.

            “Hand over your games or the next one goes right through you,” the roughened voice called.

            But as he delivered his ultimate a wireframe model formed on the tracks behind him, a rollercoaster train with a huge metal spike on the front created by Senjou’s control off the game, aimed to impale the dark Rider. He paused as the train rumbled up behind him, glanced over his shoulder for a split-second then vaulted backward over it.

While the other Riders’ eyes were off Corsair the pirate aimed his flintlock, the head of a trident sticking out of the barrel. He fired it and a grappling line shot up and embedded itself into the side of the giant drop ride, then he jumped up from the track and swung at the other Rider foot-first.

Corsair’s boots sprouted spikes on the toes as he went through the air, and he grinned as it connected with his opponent’s back. The distortion in the cry of pain he made was even sweeter. To know he’d gotten the upper hand against the evil mastermind behind all this…

His enemy hit the track and rolled a few times. The line snapped free from Corsair’s gun and he ran down the track with his sword held over his head to finish this fight.

The other Rider stood up and fired his golden gun, knocking a chip off the blade and making Corsair stop his charge. “You won’t get away, Dan,” he said, not willing to let his enemy feel they had any kind of edge.

“You can just call me Zero,” the Rider replied. “Remember that.”

Somehow Corsair thought that line should’ve been coming from someone else.

As he talked a wireframe formed on the trestle under Zero’s feet: a bundle of fireworks with a digital timer attached to it. The digits ticked down to 0:00.

Then it went off under Kamen Rider Zero’s feet.

It was if Zero had seen it coming just half a second before the trestle collapsed in a deafening firestorm of multicolored sparks. He backflipped across the tracks out of the way, only suffering a couple small burning spots on his armor.

And landing right where another bundle of fireworks had just finished ticking down to…zero.

This time Zero seemed caught totally unaware, blasted into the air by the sizzling explosion. As Corsair was taking aim with his flintlock, suddenly Zero curled himself into a ball and came down with both feet aimed Corsair’s chest. The impact knocked the wind out of him and they both fell off the track onto the top of a merry-go-round below, already spinning.

As soon as he landed Corsair planted his hands and vaulted backward onto his feet, already firing his flintlock. Zero’s gun roared too, less loudly but blasting the flintlock out of his hand. In one practiced move Zero snatched a pellet off his belt and threw it, then shot it out of the air with his golden pistol.

A cloud of smoke spread over Corsair again but as it spread into his mask his vision blurred. Something dark slammed into his jaw and knocked him back onto the roof of the merry-go-round, probably Zero’s fist.

            “Get to the middle of the roof, there’s an escape mechanism there,” Senjou’s voice crackled in his ear.

            “We’re supposed to have the advantage since we control the battlefield!”

            “We do,” Senjou said in a tone that made Corsair sure his brother was grinning darkly. “But you should be out of the way first.”

            Corsair got up and stumbled more than ran for the middle of the roof, his balance thrown off by whatever Zero had gotten him with. He heard a set of rapid footsteps on the metal underneath and knew Zero had to be gaining.

            As soon as he neared the middle a tall cylinder popped up and a door slid open, revealing a hollow space big enough for a person. The cylinder slammed closed the second Corsair was inside and then blasted off from the merry-go-round.

            The roof of the merry-go-round suddenly folded up into a solid cone shape, trapping Zero inside. With a roar the entire ride lifted out of the ground, propelled by a rocket engine high into the sky before it exploded in a storm of yellow and pink fireworks that covered the entire sky.

            Corsair climbed out of his escape pod and smiled at the display even with his fuzzy vision.

            He didn’t notice the small shape gliding away from the edge of the fairgrounds.   

 

XXX

 

            It was a strange sight.

            Both remembered GENM’s CEO being one of the least lively people they’d ever seen. Yet Tsukuru Koboshi’s hands were shaking with excitement as he, Doku and Kensei waited in the elevator.

            He’d been doing the exact same thing when they found him waiting in the lobby for them, which was surprising enough on its own. Especially with the financial trouble the company was supposed to be in, didn’t he have other things taking up his attention than personally showing them around?

            “We’re almost there,” he giggled as the floor indictor had almost reached the top.

            “Yeah…we see,” Doku said, glancing over at Kensei, who only gave a quick shrug.

            The doors seemed to speed open and Koboshi practically danced out into the waiting room of his office, where the receptionist’s desk still sat empty. Instead of going over to his office behind it, Koboshi instead went over to a plastic mockup of the GENM CORP. logo on the wall. Koboshi pushed the period and the mockup dropped down to reveal a hidden space in the wall behind it.

            Sitting inside the space on a velvet pillow with no irony whatsoever was a Rider Gashat, inside of a glass box, although even that showed no signs of dust or smudging.

The Gashat itself had a shining gold case. It was a double-sized cartridge with two clear circuit panels, laced with gold-tipped wiring. The name on the label said “Monk of Temple,” above art of a bald man in an orange robe, holding a staff with a metal ring on the top (and more metal rings dangling from that) on his shoulder.

Koboshi reverently reached out to lift the case over it open, raising it slowly so he didn’t disturb the Gashat. Looking over at the two youths, he nodded slowly for them to take it, as if this was a religious experience for him.

Doku did pick it up, glancing over uncertainly at Koboshi a few times as he did. “So…this is it?” he asked, and Koboshi nodded. “I don’t think I’ve played this one.” Immediately Koboshi’s face fell and Doku quickly tried to steer the conversation away from what he’d said. “What kind of game is it?”

            “It’s a rhythm game,” came the answer. “About a priest who calms unquiet spirits and sends them to heaven.”

            “Oh, rhythm game, huh?” Doku asked, looking over at Kensei. “You do a lot of those, right?”

Koboshi smiled at him hopefully, and Kensei nodded. “Yeah, Kiiko has me play a lot of Aqua Beat! for ‘training,’ ” he said, then chuckled. “She sucks at that game, you know?”

“Oh, I bet,” Doku chuckled right back.

            “Gentleman, please!” Koboshi interrupted them urgently, thrusting his hand skyward as he said, “This is a very special game! It was made with a destiny! This game’s been waiting for this moment to awake!”

            The two of them looked at each other and back at Koboshi before either said anything. Doku recovered first. “…but it does _work_ , right? If we plugged this game into our stuff, it would let us henshin, wouldn’t it?”

            Koboshi sputtered at the question. “Of…of course it would! This is the greatest Rider Gashat GENM’s ever created!”

            “Good,” Doku nodded. He held it out for Kensei. “Yeah, definitely sounds like you should be using that one.”

            “You sure? I saw your score on the game back at the hospital, it was pretty high.”

            Doku looked away and immediately headed back to the elevator. “What game? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

            Kensei looked over his shoulder as he followed after, “Thanks for the game! This’ll be a big help!” He turned back to Doku. “Oh come on, who else would put their initials in as RUN?”

            “Someone whose name starts with R, obviously,” Doku countered without looking at his friend.

            Koboshi just stared after them as the elevator closed, then hung his head.

 

XXX

 

            Kensei flipped the new Gashat in his hand, regarding it with an uncertainly look. It was pretty, but would it do the job?

            “You think is gonna work?” he asked.

            Doku shrugged as he walked. “Asuna-san seems to think it’s what we need. She’s the one who recommended this.”

            “There’s such a weird disconnect though, don’t you think?” Kensei asked, catching the gold Gashat and looking down at its smooth, shiny surfaces. “She and the old Riders went through a lot, but we’ve been through a lot without them.”

            “That game making you feel like a philosopher or something already, Hidenaga?” Doku said with a quizzical look.

            “Look, I’m just saying it feels weird to be getting advice from somebody outside the group, don’t you think?”

            Doku looked at him even harder. “You’re already thinking of us like a group,” he said, a little disbelieving, but smiled a little too.

            “Well, yeah. It’s been the four of us since the beginning. We came together when we had to…” Kensei said, then trailed off, looking above. Doku looked up too, curious what had gotten Kensei’s attention, and stopped where he was.

            It was a huge TV screen mounted on the side of a building, showing a scene of Kamen Rider Corsair fighting what looked like another Rider in black armor. They were on top of a merry-go-round in the middle of an amusement park, and Corsair escaped from the other Rider into a rocket in the middle before the top closed up and the entire ride blasted into the air and exploded in a blaze of fireworks.

            The footage shrank into the corner of the screen, revealing a female news anchor who explained. “This footage was just supplied to us by the Machina Vision Corporation, who claim a Kamen Rider under their sponsorship had an attempt made on his life while testing a new piece of equipment. Fortunately, the attacker was caught in a trap by the quick-thinking of Machina Vision’s crew.”

            The image above her shoulder changed to a close-up of the unknown Rider in black. The black suit and mask under dark purple armor…

            “Holy crap, is that—”

            “Let’s hope not,” Kensei whispered.

 

XXX

 

            Again the image on the screen changed to a man with a small beard the two didn’t recognize, but the info bar on the bottom of the screen identified: Senjou Shuugouteki, Machina Vision Rep.

            He had in his hand a Rider Gashat that he held up to the camera to show the name on the label: Scream Park.

            “This is the piece of equipment we were testing when we were attacked,” Senjou explained. “It allows its user to create and then control what happens inside of a Game Area. We hope to use it to give humanity a major advantage as we fight back against these ‘Corrupture’.”

            “They’re probably gonna find some way to blame GENM for this,” Kensei mumbled.

            “That’s crazy!” Doku exclaimed.

            “Why is that so crazy? It’s what they always—”

            Doku shook his head quickly. “No, not blame us! They’re using games that aren’t even about fighting now! Like that merry-go-round! It’s not supposed to freaking _explode_!”

            Kensei’s expression turned worried. “What’s _supposed_ to happen?”

            “It’s supposed to fly up and excite the people riding it with the fireworks it shoots off! It’s not supposed to _explode_ and _kill the riders_ for God’s sake!” Doku said in complete disbelief. “It’s called Scream Park because you make an amusement park but you’re supposed to make the people that come scream _because they’re excited_ with all the awesome rides and fireworks and stuff.”

            The two were silent for a while, but Kensei broke it with what they were both thinking. “So Machina Vision’s changing these games to be more dangerous.”

            That made Doku nod grimly. “Guess we shouldn’t be surprised.”

            “But guess we _will_ have to watch our backs even more now.”

            “From which ones?” Doku said darkly. “Machina Vision, or _him_? What if he was trapped up there with everybody else and got out somehow, like Poppy did?”

            Kensei didn’t answer.

 

XXX

 

            The doors slid open and Kensei stepped out into the hidden CR ward.

            He looked down at the Monk of Temple Gashat in his hand. It had been created and waiting for just the right time to be used, but that just made it seem more like something left over from the old Riders’ time.

            Unsure what to think, Kensei set it down on the meeting table, noting the outlines scorched into the top in the shape of Rider Gashats again. Just to confirm it he put his old En En Chambara cartridge on top of one, and the silhouette was flawless.

            “Eh? Kensei-kun? Are you out there?” asked a soft, slightly surprised feminine voice from a corner. It was where the DoReMiFa Beat machine was set up, and Asuna was staring out.

            Except she wasn’t Asuna Karino like that, he remembered, in her yellow and green dress and her bright pink hair. That was who she really was, the game mascot Poppy Pipopapo.

            “Yes, it’s me,” he called back. “Nothing serious, I just came down to…I don’t know. Sit down for a while.”

            In a blaze of color Poppy appeared in front of the game. “Did you get the Gashat I told you about?” she asked, then saw the golden cartridge for herself. “Is that it?”

            “That’s it.”

            Poppy picked up Monk of Temple and turned over and over in her hands. “It’s…shinier than I was expecting. Guess he really wanted other people to think this game was as special as he did.”

            Kensei shrugged. “I need it to be able to beat zombies, that’s my main concern.”

            Poppy stopped, then looked at him. “Kensei-kun?”

            “Yes?”

            She waited before she said what she had to say, seemingly trying to find the most diplomatic way of putting it. Finally, she said, “Do you mind telling me, why do you fight? From what you tell me about what’s happened since we went missing, you and your friends don’t know a lot about the Bu…I mean the Corrupture?”

            He nodded at her.

            “So then, why do you fight? Why do you feel like it’s a problem you need to solve? When it’s a problem you barely know anything about.”

            “Well, does it have—” he started to answer, then was cut off by a gasp of pain as the burning feeling from his arm flared up again. Kensei pressed the lowest button on his gauntlet and slumped back in a chair, dizzy from the rush of power.

            Poppy came up to him and lifted his arm. The green discoloring had covered his whole forearm and was spreading up to the elbow. “What happened to you??” she half-screamed in surprise.

            “I was poisoned by one of the monsters,” Kensei panted. “The glove shoots me full of power to keep it from getting worse too fast.”

            “…do you mind if I take a closer look at it?”

            “Couldn’t hurt any worse than this already does.”

            She stood up and pulled gently on Kensei’s arm to get him to follow her. “We’ll talk downstairs.”

 

XXX

 

            Kensei laid back in the weird bed Poppy had shown him into, then waited as she passed a metal arm with a light built into the underside over him. The scanner hummed and the huge screen over the back of the bed came to life with a number of readouts that wouldn’t have made any sense to Kensei even if he’d been able to see them.

            She studied the screen for a few minutes then slid the scanner back into its idle position and lifted his arm to inspect it herself. Maybe he was just getting tired, but he was sure her eyes had glowed pink for a second. “This is the worst infection I’ve ever seen. It’s gotten very deep. I wonder…”

            “What?”

            “Nothing,” Poppy said and shook her head. “But I was asking why you’d want to fight, when you don’t know much about those Corrupture.”

            “What do you mean?” Kensei asked.

            “Well, everyone who was part of the fight before was a doctor who was saving the victims, or avenging someone they cared about. Or they wanted to use the Bugster virus to become powerful, or they were Bugsters themselves fighting for their kind,” Poppy listed, counting off on her fingers.

            Kensei looked at her silently. “Uh, my brother died in Kamen Rider Chronicle—”

            Hearing that, Poppy clapped her hands together. “Ah-ha! That makes sense!”

            “—but I don’t know. After a little while of doing this I started thinking the best way I could honor him for always being my hero was trying to be a hero too when the chance got handed to me.”

            “Ah…okay,” Poppy answered, looking uncertain again and stepping away from the bed, stroking her chin.

            He sat up a little and looked over at the living mascot. “You sound kind of, I don’t know, disappointed to hear that?”

            “Well, don’t you want to avenge your brother?”

            “Of course I do! But it’s like…they can’t really be the only reason, because after he’s back, what then? I can’t just try to be like my brother forever, can I? I can’t be the best version of _me_ , if all I think about is how great my brother was.”

            Poppy shrugged and turned around to face him again. “It does sound a little strange to me, yes. Before, all the Riders I knew were doctors who were fighting to try to save people’s lives anyway. But you, you’re in school, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. That makes getting involved in something this dangerous seem extreme for a person like you.”

            “You don’t have to tell me I’m risking my life, I’ve got the worst infection you’ve ever seen.”

            She shook her head sadly. “You…you just…you seem so much like a patient, instead of a doctor,” Poppy managed to blurt out.

            He opened his mouth and closed it again. What was he supposed to say to something like that? Didn’t he have scars to prove he was serious about being a Kamen Rider? He said the first good thing he could think to say to something so unexpected. “A patient’s job is to fight their sickness too, isn’t it?”

            Poppy looked down at him, then a wan little smile formed on her lips. “I guess it is. I’m sorry if that sounded like an attack or anything…this is just so different from the way things were before. Back then everyone was a trained doctor and had someone they wanted to save or something terrible they did they had to make up for.”

            Kensei held up his poisoned arm. “I kind of wish I was a doctor, I might know what to do about this.”

            She shook her head. “That’s not something any normal doctor could treat. I’m not sure if we can treat it _here_.”

            He went on, “But I guess they had to do the best the could with what they had. Yuuma was one of the only people who could hold onto who he was enough to do something when the Corrupture started showing up, and I was the only person he knew that he trusted to do something about it, so he made sure I ended up with this,” Kensei explained, holding up his Gamer Driver.

            Then Kensei continued, “Maybe if I played more video games or something, I wouldn’t have gotten bitten, I don’t know. And maybe if I just let Machina Vision handle things now I could just go home and try to get things back on track for university, or something, or whatever would get me a more stable future. But I don’t trust Machina Vision from what I’ve seen of them, and I don’t think I can just leave a job like this done in the middle.”

            He fell back in the bed again, but saw Poppy smiling a little brighter. “It’s not an easy job, you’re right.”

            “Which one?” Kensei prompted, but realized he was smiling a little too.

            “A doctor _or_ a Kamen Rider,” she replied. “So much can go wrong if you don’t do everything just right. There’s so much you can’t control, too. It’s like you’re just trying to keep a mess from getting even bigger some days.”

            “Hey, Miss…Pipopapo?”

            “Yes, Hidenaga-san?”

            He smiled a little more. “Do you think you could just call me Kensei? If we’re going to be working together and all.”

            Poppy nodded and her small smile turned into a grin. It seemed more natural for her to look that way.

            “One other thing?” he asked.

            “Yes?” she replied, the grin still there.

            “Thanks. I mean, for saying what it’s like to do this out loud like you did,” Kensei answered. “It’s kind of good to hear you’re not the first one sometimes, you know? “

            Poppy nodded again. “Glad I could help!”

            It was a nice word, _help_.

 

XXX

 

            The whizz of the reel on his fishing rod seemed faster than usual that day. Sunlight caught on the hook and the metal seemed to glow even brighter as it stretched out, out almost to where the pond backed onto the treeline.

            It landed with a soft plop almost at the shore. Slowly, Senjou reeled in his bobber, dragging the lure to him through the entire expanse of the pond.

            This wasn’t the technique of a serious fisherman, he’d been told by anyone who fancied themselves an expert. At the moment, though, he was enjoying the chance not to be serious. A little peace and quiet before another emergency call came in from his father, and he had to drop everything, change into his best suit and get across town to the company headquarters at the speed of light.

            If his father would just put in a fishing pond at the office like Senjou kept suggesting, he’d never leave.

            Suddenly Senjou felt a tug on the line and smirked. He leaned back and wound up the reel, whatever he’d hooked pulling and wriggling back and forth all over the pond.

            And as he fought his catch, his phone started to blare from the bench at the end of the pier.

            Typical.

            He reeled in the fighting fish for another minute before letting go of the crank, and the line went limp. Whatever fish he’d just been battling would probably think twice before going after another suspicious morsel.

            Senjou covered the distance in two long steps, put down his pole and snatched up and hit the answer button just before it went to voicemail.

            “Senjou Shuugouteki, savior of humanity speaking!” he declared.

            The voice on the other end was totally impassive, but that was exactly what he’d been expecting. “Senjou-san, you went ahead and forwarded that last battle to the media.”

            “Yes father,” Senjou replied.

            “I approve all media releases related to the project,” Ayatsu reminded him calmly, but there was a sharp edge creeping in at the end of his sentence.

            Senjou picked up his fishing pole and held it out at arm’s length while he started slowly spinning in place.  “Sir, after the castle appeared downtown and we didn’t release anything, we needed to show something so people know how hard we’re working to keep them safe.”

            Ayatsu’s voice was unimpressed. “It needs to be carefully arranged to make our opposition look weak and Machina Vision look strong. You know how vital wide support is for the project.”

            “With all due respect sir, we’re not shooting a movie. GENM isn’t going to just go along with the image we’re trying to create,” Senjou replied to his father, still spinning placidly.

            “Senjou-san,” his father said slowly to make sure his message wasn’t missed, like every time he got serious, “Everything—”

            “—hinges on the plan,” Senjou said along with him. “It’s the only thing that will save humanity from destroying itself. The Bugster outbreak proves how deadly one person’s unchecked ambition can be. Another one is the perfect chance to get people to see the merit of the project. I remember, sir.”

            Silence was the only response. Senjou stopped his slow spin and walked back toward the house. While he walked his father spoke. “Since you had the best interest of the project in mind, we can move past this. But _I’m_ to approve all media releases in the future.”

            “Of course, sir,” Senjou replied before he opened the back doors and went inside, smiling.

 

XXX

 

            And as darkness settled over the country known by the human race as Japan, a plan did begin.

            Not Ayatsu Shuugouteki’s plan, though.

            In the empty building where the Amal Corrupture had made his hideaway, the faceless creature set out his treasure.

            Giri Giri Chambara.

Bakusou Bike.

Gekitotsu Robots.

Bang Bang Tank.

Dangerous Zombie.

Night of Safari.

Mighty Brothers XX.

            Embodiments of power, all of them. Different, greater powers than in human hands. There were more, there should have been more in front of him, but there was no more time. The dark Rider and the power he clearly possessed…

            His master had told him the risks were becoming too great to wait anymore. Now was the time to strike, or everything would be lost.

            One by one Amal loaded the cartridges into the slots all over his body. Plates of his grey armor turned bright colors as the energies of the games filled his body, until his armor was a blinding cacophony of colors. The plates had become crusty and bone-like from Dangerous Zombie, but colored blue, yellow, red, orange all over. A heavy red metal collar covered his chest and red armor and a heavy metal claw covered his left hand. Cat-like claws a few inches long sprouted from the fingertips of his other hand, his flat boots splaying into feline paws. An orange furry Mohawk sprouted from his dome-head, then turned bright pink and separated into a row of spikes.

            Then Amal leaned back, letting out a horrible somewhere between a great cat’s roar and metal tearing. The bottom of his dome-face formed a long crack that split open into a terrifying approximation of a mouth, its pointed edges like monstrous misaligned teeth. The dome turned a dark, red-tinged gold as Amal completed his transformation with so many Gashats installed at once. He screamed again, loud enough to shatter windows on the top floor of his hideout and all the way down.

            And all over the city, sizzling purple smoke oozed out of cracks in the ground, forming itself into green-skinned zombie Cells.


	23. Chasing the Night

            Another boring late night shift.

            That was what the guard thought, glancing at the hospital’s security monitors without really looking. He’d keep doing that, wishing he was doing something more engaging, then go home and sleep until the next night, he thought.

            He should’ve been paying closer attention. Not just because that was his job, but because then he might’ve seen the intruders coming in time to do something. Instead the first shambling virus-headed monsters weren’t noticed until they’d sneaked in through an emergency exit that mysteriously opened by itself. The pair of green-skinned horrors launched themselves at a nurse just leaving a room.

She didn’t even have a chance to scream before she was tackled to the floor, a rotted, alien-headed creature pinning her and making a horrible bubbling noise in its inhuman throat. Puffs of purple gas dripped from its fingers and covered her face.

By then it was too late. More of the zombie Cells were pushing their way into the emergency room entrance and the front doors. One loyal doctor heard the screams and locked himself and the patient he’d just been visiting in their room, picking up a clunky stool to use as a weapon of if he had to defend them.

Which he probably would before long.

 

XXX

 

“Hidenaga-san!...HIDENAGA-SAN!! I mean, Kensei, wake up!”

Someone was gripping him by his shirt and shaking him hard, Kensei realized before his eyes were even open. As his eyes focused in the sudden blinding light right overhead he saw Poppy Pipopapo leaning over him, a terrified look on her face.

            “What time is it?” he asked. Had he actually fallen asleep in the CR ward? How bad was his condition getting?

            “That’s not important!” she wailed. “The hospital’s being attacked!”

            “What?!” he yelled and automatically grabbed for his Gamer Driver, which he was relieved to find sitting on the edge of the bed where he remembered leaving it. “What kind of Corrupture? Is it Amal?”

            Poppy tilted her head at him in helpless confusion.

            “Never mind,” he answered as he made sure his collection of games was all still there. Especially Monk of Temple with its bright gold case. Looked like it was going to get its first test right away.

            They ran to the elevator and took it up to the ground floor. It was a cliché, but the hospital was in chaos. Zombie Corrupture Cells were chasing staff and patients up and down the halls, into rooms and in and out of stairwells. A few unfortunate people were lying on the floor, their skin crackling with small purple clouds.

            “Here we go,” Kensei said while he locked the Driver onto his waist. Uncertainly he brought up Monk of Temple, then shoved it into its slot. “Henshin!”

            The Driver’s voice was oddly calm as it activated the new game, “ **The dead rise. Sally forth from temple.** ” A gong sounded. “ **Sound the rhythm of the scriptures, and prove the masterpiece!”**

            “What kind of blurb is that?” Kensei muttered but the transformation was already happening.

            Utsura’s usual yellow and black undersuit crawled over his body, then as it always did an image of the game’s title screen formed in the air over his head. It showed the Buddhist monk on the game’s label, looking defiant as a swarm of zombies stood on the right side of the screen. Instead of a Gamer module forming into his new equipment, a flowing orange robed solidified around him. A short stick appeared in his right hand and a loop of cord decorated with prayer beads in his left. Hovering in the air in front Utsura was a round wooden drum carved to look something like a fish. The last and strangest change to his armor was the domed top of his helmet taking on a reflective shine.

            “This is it, huh?” the Rider asked in faint disbelief, then stared down the hall at the zombie Cells who were all staring right back at him. He thrust out his prayer beads and a shockwave ripped down the hall. None of the Cells’ victims were touched but the Cells themselves stood transfixed.

            He tapped the drum with the stick in his hand and a loud, clear note echoed down the hallway. The Cells made bubbling sounds that came more from their heads than their throats as the sound touched them. Utsura tapped the drum again and their noise got even louder, the Cells backing away from the people they’d been attacking.  
            “Oh my god, I can’t believe it’s working!” Poppy and Utsura said at the exact same time, looked over at each other and chuckled, then turned back to face the Cells again. Utsura shoved out his hand with the prayer beads and another blast of power went down the hall, seeming even stronger than before. The zombie Cells cried out and staggered away down the hall from Utsura, but he tapped the drum and as they ran away their withered bodies started to shake in pain. The purple gas seeping out of their bodies stopped coming.

            Utsura walked after them, tapping the drum and waving the prayer beads after them in a steady rhythm, following a pattern sliding in along the bottom of his goggles’ display. More Cells hurried out of bedrooms and neighboring hallways, as much as the undead could hurry anyway. Doctors and nurses pushed themselves against the walls to get out of their way and flinched as the rotted monster staggered past.

            After a few minutes they got to the front lobby and the pained Cells lurched out the doors. Utsura waved his prayer beads and hit his drum even more forcefully than before.  His opponents moved slower every time, and when they stopped in the courtyard it was because the Cells had gotten too weak to even stand up. It looked like Monk of Temple was a powerful game after all. Koboshi would’ve been proud.

            The Rider pulled it out of his driver and switched it with River Harmony, the orange robes melting away to his fisherman’s vest and sage’s pointed hat, the prayer beads and wooden fish replaced with his regular fishing pole.

            “ **River Critical Finish!** ” the Driver shouted as he slotted the game into the fishing pole. Utsura swung the line out in a circle around his head, the hook disappearing into the ground as if it were water and coming out again with a dozen man-sized fish biting down on it. He swung the line in a circle around him again and the fish came flying off the line and crashed through the helpless Corrupture Cells, battering them into nothing but a purple cloud.

            “You did it!” Poppy laughed, jumping up and down and slapping Utsura on the shoulder. “That was a pipo-popo-pleasure!”

            “Heh, thanks,” he said then looked behind him. “Now for the rest of the floors…”

 

XXX

 

            Doku Dasao had never really thought about looking out over a city’s skyline after dark. What all the lights of a city would look like against the black banner of the middle of night.

            As he cruised over the rooftops on his hovering platform, he felt more sure that he hadn’t missed anything. Below him was a cluster of cars stopped in their tracks, and beyond them he could see what had stopped them: a writhing mass of ugly purple dots pushing against the cars and buildings surrounding them.

            Corrupture Cells.

            Kamen Rider Rune ran his thumb up the side of his deck of cards, reassured at the feeling that it was a fourth as tall again thanks to the rare Energy Items they’d recovered from that dragon’s treasure horde. A lot of them had turned into valuable cards for his game, and there were a couple in particular he was looking forward to using…

            Not against those new undead Corrupture Cells, though. Their only chance against those was the new game, and that meant he needed to catch up with Hidenaga as soon as he could.

            The Mighty Chibi Gamer had spotted him taking out a bunch of those zombies at the hospital while out patrolling, so Rune let himself feel a little relief at that. How had Hidenaga gotten to the hospital so fast, though?

            Maybe, Rune realized, he should’ve been asking _why_ his fellow Rider had already been there. Was he getting some kind of extra treatment? Why would he be getting treatment…? Was it because…

            Rune violently shook those kinds of thoughts from his head. There was an actual army of the living dead spread out underneath him, and at the very end of the street he could barely see the sign for Seito University Hospital.

            But then a black shape flew across the sky in front of the hospital’s light.

            It had only been for a second, but the outline of a miniature pirate ship, with a group of human silhouettes standing on the main deck and another one in a flowing coat and wide hat standing at the wheel on the rear.

            Didn’t it figure Corsair and his buddies would be up to something in the middle of all this, Rune sighed to himself.

            He thought of going to get Utsura, to have as much firepower as possible before getting into a fight. Especially with so many unkillable Corrupture around. But then he thought about another possibilty: if Corsair and his crew got away, from him the NG Riders would never know what he was doing. And after luring them into a trap in that castle, Rune already knew they were up to something dirty.

            Rune would follow them and see what was going on, _then_ call Utsura when he knew what they were up against.

            In the meantime he banked his platform after the Terror of the Tides, drawing cards from his deck to be ready for whatever came next.

            This was going to be a night to remember.

            Where had he read that before?

 

XXX

 

            They sailed between buildings, but as they did Corsair glanced over his shoulder. Not at the dim, distant shape of a man on a small platform shadowing them, but at the expressionless face of his older brother behind him on deck.

            “Don’t go overboard with this, understand?” Corsair growled.

            “Overboard! Because we’re on a pirate ship” Senjou Shuugouteki laughed and clapped his hands. Corsair growled again and Senjou shrugged his shoulders and tucked his hands behind his back. “It’s impossible anyway from what they told me, how these monsters come back from anything.”

            Corsair looked away again down toward the streets at the clusters of zombie Cells, to find one with a manageable size and few to no witnesses…

            “There,” he said after a little while longer of scanning. A group of about five Cells were just emerging from the ground in an empty lot near a dry canal. “Gentlemen, there’s our target.”

            His Auto Players standing on the main deck below him all nodded once in acknowledgement, then the ship descended to land in the corner of the lot. The Auto Players reached into their backpacks and got out nets made of metal chains and batons with prongs on the ends, both popping with electricity.

            And from high above, a miniature fighter jet hovering just about Kamen Rider Rune’s shoulder recorded everything.

            The Auto Players jumped down and spread out to surround their prey, with the Cells looking around and making their angry bubbling sound as they sized up their situation. Two Auto Players held out one of the electrified nets between them and tossed it out over two Cells then pulled the edges down to the ground completely covering the undead monsters.

            The metal links of the net surged with power and the netted Cells gave off a bubbling shriek of pain. The other three zombies made a limping run to help but more Auto Players jumped in front of them swinging their electric batons. While they were distracted another two Auto Players tossed an electrified net over them as well. Once the Cells were all covered the Auto Players lifted their nets off the ground and carried them back to Corsair’s pirate ship.

            While Rune watched from above a small icon started blinking in the corner of his view. It was a super-deformed version of the dragon-man Graphite. He switched on the feed from that Chibi Gamer and what he saw wiped away all thoughts about what Corsair and his little group were up to.

            It was the Amal Corrupture, with games sticking out all over his arms, legs and head. It had to be him, even though his black dome of a head had turned gold with a tinge the reminded Rune of dried blood. As Amal stomped down a street, Rune noticed he was totally alone; despite the city being swarmed with zombie Cells, there were none with Amal. He wasn’t rallying them to attack…what was he up to?

            Rune turned around and floated away, sending the Jet Combatant Chibi Gamer away with its footage of the Cell kidnapping.

            Something more dangerous than Corsair had shown itself, and Rune felt a cold tingle run down his spine at the thought. Kamen Rider Corsair was a powerful fighter and an ass, but he was human. Rune could imagine the things his plans might involve without too much trouble.

            What did the Corrupture want, though? Did they just want to destroy the world?

            Or something even worse?

 

XXX

 

            The last of the Cells that’d been terrorizing Seito University Hospital flowed off the floor of the helipad into the sky. Kamen Rider Utsura collapsed his Gashacon Catcher and panted quietly, but he saw Poppy grinning at him and let himself feel a bit of pride in the job. “That was…kind of intense,” he breathed.

            “That was a big job,” Poppy agreed with a nod.

            “Yeah, but _now_ what?” Utsura asked, leaning over the railing. “Look at all the other ones out there…!”

            Poppy skipped to his side and looked over the railing down, then bit her lip to see police in riot gear trying desperately to hold back a group of Corrupture Cells with the same decayed green skin as the ones Utsura had been taking care of. “What do we do?” she asked a little nervously. “Is your game strong enough to deal with _all_ of them?”

            “I had to do every floor one at a time,” he reminded her.

            “Kenseeeeeiiii-kuuuuuuuuuun!”

            The two looked over their shoulders and dashing out of the stairway was Kiiko Mishiranu. She stopped a few feet away and bent over, hands on her knees, as she panted for breath. Then Kiiko managed to get herself together enough to look up at her friend, “Have you been here all night?”

            “I’ve sure been here for a while, cleaning out all the zombies,” Utsura answered.

            “No wonder you didn’t answer,” Kiiko pouted. “I called like fifteen times when I ran over here.”

            “Get the feeling you weren’t calling about all the zombies,” Utsura mumbled.

            Kiiko looked him right in his oversized eyes. “I got the feeling of a whole bunch of games being turned on at the same time. It’s that one monster with all the plugs. The one with the weird name.”

            “Amal,” Utsura gently prompted.

            She nodded urgently as he confirmed it. “We should go after him, right?? Why would he use so many games at the same time unless he was up to something really bad?”

            Poppy nodded in her direction. “Mishiranu-san has a good point.” Kiiko turned to face her and gave the strangest look, but Poppy smiled back at her hopefully.

            Then Utsura clapped both of them on the shoulder at the same time. “Care to lead the way, ladies?” he asked.

            Poppy held up her hand. “Ready?” she asked, smiling.

            “Are you sure it’ll work again?” Kiiko asked uncertainly, but she pressed her palm into Poppy’s. A pink glow covered both women, there was a loud pop and where they’d been standing hovered a tiny ball of pink light with fluttering white fairy wings.

            Utsura summoned his Cruiser and rode off the hospital’s helipad on the back of his flying catfish. He followed after the…

            “What, well, are you like this, anyway?” he asked.

            “The same thing as always! I’m the Navi!” Kiiko’s voice called back.

 

XXX

 

            The Cells were still bubbling and screaming from the electric current in the nets as the Auto Players heaved them onto the deck of the ship. Senjou watched with no expression, but Corsair chuckled at the display.

            His brother said nothing, but he got out his phone when it shook in his pocket. An image of a flashing red beacon was on the lock screen. “Hey, Suihei-san. We’ve got a monster report.”

            “Just one?” Corsair scoffed.

            “Ah, but apparently this is a Priority-1 alert,” Senjou replied confidently, and swiped away the lock screen on his phone. A GPS map appeared, and on it a red blip with a bubble showing the Amal Corrupture. His armor a crazy patchwork of colors from every last one of the stolen games plugged into him.

            The display flicked to one of Ayatsu Shuugouteki sitting at his desk. His fingers were linked in front of his face, the eyes above them shining with an internal fire.

            “Gentlemen,” he addressed them simply.

            “Sir,” both of his sons said at the same time.

            “You’ll drop off your specimens at the building,” Ayatsu immediately started laying out his instructions. “Land on the roof, there’ll be people there to collect them and a fresh party of Auto Players to back you up. Get rid of that thing, make it nice and spectacular. Whatever you do, make sure _you_ get all of those games on it.”

            “Sir,” both of his sons replied.

            Ayatsu folded his fingers in front of his eyes for a minute. Corsair and Senjou gave each a quick glance.

            Then he looked placed his hands down on the top of his desk again. “We’re not ready to handle that much opposition at this point in time,” Ayatsu said simply.

            “Are we even sure they’re right about how it works, sir?” Corsair asked.

            “We can’t take the chance they _aren’t_ ,” Ayatsu said sharply.

            “Yes, sir,” Corsair immediately acknowledged.

            Ayatsu sighed and for the first time that either of his sons could remember, looked very, very tired and vulnerable. He quickly composed himself, folded his fingers again and said, “We’re too close to a breakthrough on the project. This phase is much too delicate.”

            “Sir,” his son said. Corsair jumped to the wheel while Senjou climbed onto the main deck and the pirate ship lifted off.

 

XXX

 

            Closer.

            _Closer_.

            _CLOSER._

            It was there, he could _feel_ it. A power greater than all of the games he’d already managed to find put together.

            Amal spotted his target: an ordinary gas station convenience store. His alien mind didn’t understand subtlety, only results. He levelled his giant metal fist at the building and fired.

            The giant projectile hit a car parked by the gas pumps and ripped a gouge through the top. Its momentum blasted the car rolling into the air while Amal’s fist rocketed past. It hit the front wall of the gas station, caving it in with a hailstorm of shattering glass and twisted metal framework.

            People screamed and ran away from the building for all they were worth, or cowered inside helplessly. Amal ignored both types as his fist reattached to his arm and he pounced like a giant cat through the space where the front wall had been. His jump sent him crashing through two rows of snack racks and scattering potato chips and brightly-colored candy all over the floor. With the long claws on his right hand Amal knocked the doors off a liquor cooler then started smashing the bottles aside until there was enough room for him to step through.

            On the bottom of the refrigerated space beyond was a small circle of purple paint. Something tiny, some forgettable marking probably put there while the building was going up and never thought of again.

Or so it appeared. Amal reached out and touched it with one finger and immediately started giving off a blinding light.

            From that light rose a Rider Gashat.

            It was double-wide with a dark blue case and a yellow knob on the front. The label on its right side said Perfect Puzzle, and showed a grimacing blue creature over a background of a half-finished jigsaw puzzle. There was another label on the left side, reading Knock Out Fighter and showing a boxer covered in flames.

            He grabbed it and turned toward the entrance he’d made, holding the cartridge tightly in his hand. This was an extremely powerful Gashat, but the great one had told him it was a sacred object. It was a key to a greater power, one that could destroy them with ease, and he was only to use it the way his leader _commanded_.

            As soon as Amal turned around, a flock of shrieking bat dolls went flying into the gas station and exploded as they hit him.

            The multicolored nightmare of a monster flew out the back of the store and skidded to a stop on the asphalt, shooting up sparks from its armor grinding on the ground. Immediately he jumped back up to face Kamen Rider Rune as he floated over the roof of the building, and the War Room robot scuttled around the side.

            “Arise, Loremaster!” Rune commanded as he laid down a card. Beside the robot he’d already summoned appeared a wireframe that filled in to become a floating robot’s torso, with a beard on his chin made of strands over silver wire and a sharp metal spike where his legs would be.

            Rune drew another card and declared, “And I play Remodeling Synthesis, joining my machines into one!”

            The two robots shimmered, the covering of their wireframe models fading out and then flowing together, Loremaster onto the top of the spider-like War Room machine. Then there was a blaze of color and a new bizarre being had entered the battle. It had six thin metal legs instead of four, each one braced on the ground by flower petal-like toes. A gunmetal grey hexagon-shaped box was in the middle where the legs met with a bronze-colored door in each side. Sticking out of the top was the torso of the Loremaster, threads of gold running through his metal beard.

            “Arise, Grandmaster! Scribe of the strategies and general of the tiny armies!” Rune declared, seeming totally oblivious to how goofy what he’d just said was, then chuckled. “See how you like _this_!”

            Amal didn’t wait for Rune’s robot to make the first move, tucking the Gashat he’d just found away then pouncing with the agility of a cat but his heavy robotic fist held out in front of him.

            The Grandmaster’s spidery legs all went flat and Amal went shooting over his head. He stood up and jumped on all legs at the same time, then suddenly started spinning them like a rotor. The tip of Grandmaster’s legs sliced into Amal’s back over and over like a saw and chipped at the Corrupture’s chaotically colored armor.

            The monster staggered but whipped around to face his opponent, a pink and yellow bow appearing in his clawed hand. He pulled back his metal fist along its side, a glowing arrow forming before it shot off. Grandmaster ducked and the show only clipped the armor over one of his shoulders.

            Kamen Rider Rune held a card up then laid it down on the Battaifield attached to his arm. “I activate Obfuscating Veil!” he yelled at the top of his voice. A sheet of cloth with points of light shining from it like tiny stars dropped on top of Grandmaster as immediately he seemed to disappear.

            Amal fired another arrow from his bow but it went right through where the robot had just been standing, hitting nothing at all.

            All of a sudden there was a tiny *BANG* sound and Amal’s head jerked to one side. Two toy soldiers wearing bright red coats and fuzzy black hands stood a few feet away, rifles aimed up at Amal and wind-up keys grinding in their backs. One arrow from his day-glo bow annihilated both in a giant HIT explosion.

            The second it cleared though a pair of grinning spider toys jumped over Amal’s shoulders from behind. They carried a thick web between them and they wrapped it tight around his body. Swinging his powerful arms wide was all it took to tear the web away, but by then a metal robot doll with boxy torso, limbs and head was walking his way and spewing sparks from its mouth.

            Raising his metal fist high to smash this pitiful challenger, Amal was caught by surprised when its key stopped turning and the robot doll erupted in a pillar of blocky flames. HIT graphics covered Amal, but nonetheless he stood singed but unhurt in the middle of the parking lot.

            “And with my new turn I summon Sage Drake to my army!” Rune declared and laid down another card. A squat blue dragon appeared sitting on his haunches and glancing at Amal over his glasses. The Corrupture aimed his bow at Sage Drake, but looked up at something over Rune’s shoulder.

            A miniature pirate ship buzzed Rune’s hover platform, but he just let it pass through him, as his trading card game Gashat made him untouchable. His monsters, though, he made scatter as the ship crashed down in the middle of the parking lot.

            Kamen Rider Corsair and his group of Auto Players immediately jumped down from the deck wielding their weapons. “Why don’t you see how you stack up to a real warrior?” Corsair challenged.

            Amal stared down the Machina Vision war party for a moment. Suddenly he tweaked a Gashat on his shoulder and a bright yellow motorcycle appeared right next to him and he jumped on and sped away from them.

            Out of nowhere a funhouse with a demonic clown’s face as the front door sprang up in front of him. Amal swerved to his left and a cotton candy booth appeared in front of him there. He skidded so violently he was almost touching the ground before he managed to stop. Meanwhile theme park attractions were popping out of the parking lot all around them. Including a chainlink fence around the edges almost fifteen feet high, the mesh crackling with deadly electric power.

            “Going somewhere?” Senjou Shuugouteki asked, his body already surrounded by a bubble of power filled with screens showing views all over the park.

            “Got here quick, didn’t you guys?” Rune said from behind all of them. “That afraid of somebody else looking good doing your job?”

            Corsair looked over his shoulder at him, and laughed. “Are _you_ that afraid of getting upstaged, GENM? My game’s been upgraded and I’m more powerful than ever with just one Gashat, _and_ I’ve got someone to control the battlefield and my own army to back me up. You can’t do _anything_ without your little monsters, can you? You’re so desperate you tried to attack me and make me think Dan’s back from the dead!”

            “…what the hell are you talking about?” Rune asked, suddenly realizing he was short of breath for some reason.

            They were interrupted by a savage metallic roar from Amal, it feeling like the first sound they’d ever heard him make. He lifted his robotic fist and jumped across the entire distance between him and Corsair. The pirate spun out of the way just before it came down where he’d been, and a HIT explosion still erupted on the back of one leg.

            His Auto Players formed a circle around the two of them but Amal called up one of his pink and yellow sickles. Clearly he had no interest in running away anymore. An Auto Player jumped at Amal from behind and was rewarded by the Corrupture turning and slashing it aside with his sickle.

            And as the fight picked up Rune pulled cards off the top of his deck. Below him Grandmaster reappeared beside Sage Drake, but he slapped down another card. “Arise, Glyph Chaser!” and at his command a glowing outline of a humanoid shape appeared. Rune looked up, watching the battle and waiting for just the right moment.

Auto Players punched at Amal only be to be knocked aside by the Corrupture, only for another Auto Player to jump up and attack from another direction. Amal lashed out at Corsair with his sickle only for it to meet the blade of his opponent’s cutlass. A deafening CLANG sounded out across the fairground. Without warning Corsair slammed into elbow into Amal’s chest. This knocked him off-balance and let Corsair land a powerful scissor-kick that knocked Amal backward.

Corsair levelled his flintlock but suddenly Amal’s oversized fist had changed into a tank’s barrel. Both fired at the same time. Corsair’s shot expanded but still bounced off Amal’s armor barely leaving a dent. The pirate Rider himself went diving to the ground a second before Amal fired, the shell hitting an Auto Player standing behind him and blowing the android to pieces.

Two other Auto Players jumped on Amal from behind and grappled him. They wrestled with the two androids trying to pin his arms to his sides. Then, like Rune had been expecting would happen at some point, Amal’s body divided in two. One blue, one orange. Only one Auto Player was holding onto each copy now and Amal, and both were easily thrown off. The one on the Orange Amal was easily smashed in two by a punch from his robotic fist.

            “Go, Glyph Chaser!”

            At the player’s command he was already off, moving so fast he was only a trail of light.

            The roller coaster’s track above suddenly changed direction and started forming across the ground between Rune’s monsters and the fight between Corsair and Amal. Glyph Chaser blazed past a second before the track dipped low and almost engulfed him. He swerved through the Auto Players as they closed in for another attack and Corsair who was screaming at them to stop the super-fast monster before he could do some damage.

            “Fire, idiots! FIRE!”

            It was too late. Glyph Chaser snatched the Mighty Brothers XX Gashat off Blue Amal’s shoulder. He pulled on the Dangerous Zombie Gashat too but Orange Amal swiped at his head, and Glyph Chaser gave it up and raced back to his player.

            There was a POP and the two Corrupture reformed into one. Corsair looked back and forth between Amal and Rune, likely trying to decide if he should press his attack on the dazed monster or go after the Rider who’d just stolen his thunder. Not waiting for him to decide, Rune snatched the cartridge out of his monster’s hand.

            For that quick moment, Rune smiled. The strongest of his monsters at the moment was only Level 15, a fusion of three Level 5 monsters. He’d never stood a chance in a direct conflict of power, either between Amal or Corsair and his minions.

            But games were tests of skill and strategy, too; there was more to winning than just getting the highest power levels. And he had the proof of how well a bit of strategic thinking could work in his gloved hand.

            “Don’t you dare, GENM! Don’t you _DARE_!” Corsair yelled.

            Rune did. He tapped the Gashat’s trigger button, then released Mighty Brothers XX and let it drift away into the sky to rejoin its real owner.

 

XXX

 

            Almost immediately a collective scream of rage echoed across the fairgrounds, mostly Amal’s but Rune was sure part of it was Corsair’s too.

            “Grandmaster, deploy speed units,” Rune hastily ordered. The spider-like robot nodded and stroked his fingers through his beard. All six doors on his midsection flipped open at the same time. Wind-up pterodactyls and bats fluttered out. Next to them Rune’s other monsters leaned back to brace themselves.

            The Amal Corrupture acted first. He slammed his heavy fist into the ground and send cracks forming for almost fifty feet around. Thick smoke gushed out and took shape into a crowd of zombie Corrupture Cells. They wore mismatched outfits, some in rusty samurai armor, police uniforms, chef outfits and a few in tattered French maid dresses.

            Kamen Rider Corsair was the closest and most obvious target. He gasped and hacked through the closest zombies with his sword, firing lobbing shots from his gun in the other. Every Cell to be hit immediately exploded into thick smoke but it only flowed to the back of the group and reformed into new undead attackers.

            One Cell grabbed his sword-arm and kept him from swinging again, letting more swarm over the Rider. The rest of his Auto Players jumped forward to come to Corsair’s aid but were swarmed over themselves, robotic body parts flying everywhere as the Cells tore into them.

            Suddenly a booth formed out of the ground around Corsair, and a bunch of faceless tourists appeared leaning over the counter and aiming rifles into the new shooting gallery. Guns popped and the Cells who’d been attacking Corsair burst and floated away.

            Half of the Cells broke away and charged Rune’s monsters, the zombies actually managing to run and not just stagger along like before. The Grandmaster’s flying toys bombarded the first wave, followed by more toy bats, dragons and bees that exploded as they hit the attacking zombies. Sage Drake gave the Cells an unimpressed look, sharp barrages of runes flowing from his eyes and battering the zombies into smoke.

            Grandmaster readied another swarm of exploding toys, but held out a hand over the dragon’s head and chanted in unintelligible words. A soft glow covered Sage Drake, and his superior gaze was shooting deadly runes faster and stronger that mowed through zombies even quicker.

            But Kamen Rider Rune could see it was still no good. Every zombie that fell just came back again at the end of the pack to push down on them again. Sooner or later some would get through, and then…

            …and then Rune heard a ringing sound that made him think of hollow wood being hit. The zombies heard it too and stopped where they stood. Rune and Corsair stopped and looked over their shoulders to see Kamen Rider Utsura walking across their fairgrounds, wearing a baggy orange robe over his armor. He was hitting a wooden fish with a stick and wave a string of prayer beads in a quickening rhythm. As he did the zombies started to scattered away from the fight, but with none of the speed they’d just had when they were attacking.

            “Is that your new mode?” Rune asked, his voice low partly in relief and partly in disbelief.

            “He’s getting away!” Utsura answered.

            “What?” Rune replied, caught off-guard. Then out of the corner of his eye he spotted Amal running away, into the mouth of a demonic clown marking the doors of the funhouse. “After him!” Rune yelled, pointing at the entrance. All three of his card monsters scrambled after it.

            The Kamen Rider himself floated after them, but turned to look over his shoulder. “Will you be okay?” he asked Utsura.

            “If all that time I spent playing Aqua Beat was worth it!” Utsura yelled back. He waved his prayer beads around faster than ever and the zombies screamed in pain. Rune looked back just one more time, then followed his monsters into the funhouse.

           

XXX

 

            An unpleasant surprise greeted Kamen Rider Rune inside.

            It was a hall of mirrors.

            Angled panes of glass stretched from floor to ceiling forming a maze, and keeping his floating vantage point from being any kind of edge.

            Off to one side a mirror had smashed to tiny shards, no doubt the Amal Corrupture making his own way out. “Glyph Chaser, scout around. See if you can cut him off,” Rune commanded, and the outline zipped away down a main path. Grandmaster and Sage Drake crept through the trail of broken mirrors Amal had left behind, even though it was ruined by the sound of glass sent skittering across the floor by the dragon’s awkward feet.

            Rune kept a careful eye out as he followed them, jumping at any shape reflected in a mirror thinking it would be Amal about to attack only to realize it was only him or one of his monsters. After a minute of sneaking along the trail of smashed mirrors suddenly just stopped. There was a small spill of glass shards at the bottom of one panel but it was totally undamaged.

            “What’s going on?” Rune muttered.

            Without warning a mirror swung forward, blocking the way they’d come. Another one blocked another way out off to the left.

            “Feeling a little closed in, little GENM Rider?” laughed a snide voice coming from the ceiling.

            Of course, Rune realized. Machina Vision had Gashats that let them create, and then control, what happened in a Game Area now. Maybe they couldn’t beat the Amal Corrupture in a fight with all his different powers, but they could change the battlefield to keep another Rider from getting a shot at him instead.

            All Rune needed to do was point and his Sage Drake gave one of his disdaining looks to the mirror with the spilled glass in front of them. Bigger, brighter letters zapped out of his eyes with Grandmaster’s powers buffing his attack. The mirror shattered all over the floor, revealing another one already shattered behind it.

            The Rider floated through the empty space and through the mirror Amal must’ve shattered on his search for an exit. He spotted another destroyed mirror but before he could follow it another panel covered the space.

            “Destroy everything!” Rune yelled, forgetting about sneaking up on Amal just to make sure the monster didn’t have another chance to get away. Grandmaster sprayed exploding dolls in all directions, dumping jagged slivers all over the ground and just barely missing Sage Drake. For his part the dark swept his disapproving look back and forth, annihilating more mirrors with his letter blasts.

            Rune flew through the paths their attacks created looking for any sign of the Corrupture. There was no sign of Amal in the disaster area of shattered glass, only a hole smashed out of the back wall, and behind that the chainlink fence knocked down.

            The Amal Corrupture was gone.

 

XXX

 

            When Rune made it back to the surface the different buildings and rides seemed to be deflating into the ground. There was no trace of any zombie Cells, or of Machina Vision’s team. Not even any body parts from the destroyed Auto Players. Just a wrecked gas station and Kamen Rider Utsura watching the sky as the outline of a pirate ship sailed across the moon before disappearing back into the city.

            “What happened?” Rune asked.

            “They just picked up all the robot parts and left all of a sudden,” Utsura answered. “Guess they didn’t care about fighting _me_ , for some reason.”

            “…that’s kind of scary,” Rune sighed but pulled his cartridge free and was glad to change back to normal.

            Utsura’s armor flickered away as he pulled the game out of his Driver too. “I know,” Kensei echoed. “If they aren’t gonna just beat us down, what are they planning to do instead?”

            Doku smirked. “Maybe they’ll just put pictures of you in that outfit up on the internet. Who’ll take us seriously then?”

            To his surprise, Kensei laughed. “I know! I get a baggy orange sheet to wear and you get a dragon, plus a spider wizard robot!”

            Hearing that, Doku couldn’t help smiling. “They’re pretty cool, huh?”

            “Are those all the ones you have?” Kensei asked and started walking away from the remains of the battlefield. Doku walked beside him, and shook his head.

            “No, not quite. You’ll get to see the really strong ones soon, though. Thanks to all those Energy Items you got before.”

            Kensei whistled. “ _All_ of those turned into new cards for you?”

            “Yeah!” Doku grinned and stretched his arms up to the sky. “Some that never even got made into the physical game! God, I can’t believe they put that much work into this!”

            He looked over and stared hard when he realized Kensei was laughing. “Does the real game work like the one they gave you?” Kensei asked.

            “Pretty much! Look, it’s like…”

            And they walked on, laughing and talking.

 

XXX

 

            The area was dark but it was empty.

            Safe.

            Safe enough for Amal to meet with his leader uninterrupted at least.

            He held out the Gashat he’d recovered before the battle with the Kamen Riders, the blue cartridge with its yellow knob on the front. It lay in his palms as an offering.

            A cloud of blocky particles spun into existence out of thin air. Parts were bright green, others dark purple and a sharp red forming wherever they blended together. A dark outline filled out inside of it, a dark shape of a human’s upper body.

            With a shadowy arm it reached out and picked up the Gashat that Amal was offering it. He fell down on his knees in front of the shape, which then reached out and shoved the Dual Gashat into a plug on the back of Amal’s neck.

            Immediately he let out a scream sounding like hunks of metal grinding together. Purple lights shaped like angry eyes started to glow under the material of Amal’s dome. Every Gashat plugged into his body so hard they looked a second away from shooting out like champagne corks. The cracked mouth on the bottom of his dome-head split open and a thick purple cloud gushed out. Blocky, monstrous faces melted and reformed in the coils.

            Before Amal had been a patchwork monster, formed from the powers of different games.

            Now, he’d be a patchwork demon.

            Watching through a cracked window was a winged ball of pink light. “This is bad,” Poppy’s voice whispered form it.

            “Let’s go warn Kensei,” Kiiko’s voice replied.

            With that the Navi flew away from the empty old building, determined to warn its allies of the terrible news it’d learned.

            Out of nowhere a glowing net shot out from the ground and covered Navi, dragging the buzzing ball of light back down. Reeling it in was Kamen Rider Corsair, who laughed a cruel little laugh as Navi tried uselessly to fly free.

            He turned back to his ship where his brother was standing on the rear deck. “Call father,” Corsair said. “Tell him to get ready for war.”

            And as the pirate ship flew away, the dark shape in the swirling cloud watched it go.


	24. Unwinnable Midgame Boss Fight

Waves of Corrupture Cells rushed forward, almost crushing Kamen Rider Corsair as he fought back desperately with his spiked cutlass. His group of Auto Players jumped into the fray to try to rescue him, only to be engulfed and ripped to pieces themselves. Behind the Cells stood the Amal Corrupture, seeming to grin with the new cracked mouth in his dome.

Watching the playback of the battle, hands folded in front of his face, was Ayatsu Shuugouteki from his office at the top of Machina Vision’s tower. Standing off to his right, watching silently were his sons, Senjou and Suihei. Between them and Ayatsu stood a towering bald man in a dark suit and mirrored sunglasses, who Senjou and Suihei were very deliberately making a point to avoid looking at.

Ayatsu pressed a button on a remote and the monitor went dark. He stood up suddenly and whirled around, Suihei flinching away from him in surprise. “This is completely unusable,” Ayatsu announced. “You were supposed to defeat the Amal Corrupture.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Senjou replied, “the Amal possesses a wide variety of abilities _and_ a great deal of raw power. Perhaps what we lack is a comparable diversity.”

“ _With all due respect_ , Senjou,” Ayatsu said, his face darkening, “that sounds like a convenient excuse for someone who lacks the imagination to make effective use of an advantage like controlling the entired battlefield.”

Despite his father’s attack, Senjou’s expression remained totally neutral. “That did help us turn the tide, but we _are_ still discussing an enemy with a…questionable interest, you might call it, in fighting Kamen Riders. Who can now also create armies on a whim. If we better understood its goals, then we could counter them.” He folded his arms in front of himself, no expression on his face. “Instead we’re left attacking an enemy with all the advantages and no patterns to anticipate.”

Ayatsu clenched his teeth. Suihei looked up at his father fearfully, over at his older brother who didn’t wince at all from their father’s wrath. “Then what,” Ayatsu said in a voice full of quiet menace, “do you suggest instead?”

“It’s obvious, sir,” Senjou replied and raised one finger to show how serious his declaration was. “Instead of waiting for this Amal to show up and attack him, we should make him come to _us_ , and then attack him.”

Silence fell over the office. Seething, Ayatsu just stood behind his desk staring down his older son. Senjou turned and pointed his upraised finger at the humming cage in the corner of the office, where a ball of pink light buzzed around. “And _there_ is how we’ll find something Amal wants.”

“I’ll never help _you_ asses!” Kiiko Mishiranu’s voice snarled from the cage.

“Catching that _was_ an achievement,” Ayatsu admitted, but his tone was still begrudging. He leaned over to the cage. “I’ve never seen anything like this…you’re sure this is one of GENM’s?”

“It was spying on the Corrupture, sir,” Suihei jumped in, seeming glad for the chance to talk about something to distract his father from his anger. “I’m sure of it. It tried to fly away from the Corrupture’s hiding place before I caught it.”

Ayatsu studied the cage again. “I suppose that’ll have to be good enough until we can analyze this thing and find out what it really is,” he said thoughtfully.

The Navi gasped with two voices at the same time.

 

XXX

 

Finally, the last page of the River Harmony strategy guide ended in front of bleary Kensei’s eyes.

He looked up from his chair, and there was still no sign of life from Yoshoku, who still just lay motionless in his hospital bed.

What was that old saying about nothing happening while you were waiting around for it? Still, Kensei didn’t feel like he should leave just yet. Things were getting so crazy in their fight, with the Amal attacking the whole city with a zombie army, and Machina Vision getting powerful enough to control what actually happened in Game Areas…

It made him think about how even though their interactions could be rough sometimes, Yoshoku had never backed down before. Kensei supposed he hadn’t thought much about it, but Yoshoku’s sharp attitude had kind of spurred him on. Reminded him how seriously they all needed to take being Kamen Riders. Whatever his faults, Yoshoku Kasuga had never lacked for passion.

Even when he’d attacked an enemy with a Level more than ten times higher than his.

A sudden sting from his arm reminded Kensei of his own injuries. He pushed the lowest button on his Mighty Hand and his body quivered from the injection of energy.

Next thing he knew he was staring up at the ceiling with a nurse leaning over him.

“Sir?...Sir! Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, I just…tripped,” Kensei said breathlessly.

“Well, all right,” the nurse said, but her expression was unsure. She leaned back and helped Kensei to his feet. He staggered out of the room and down the hallway, and still needed to lean on the wall with one hand again for a minute before he felt strong enough to walk.

Another doctor and pair of nurses gave Kensei worried looks as he went by, one of the nurses actually hurrying out of his way.

Was he getting that bad? Maybe, he thought, he should ask Poppy if that examination she did on him told her anything else. When Kensei got outside he dug around in his jacket pockets for his train pass, then stopped as something cold and metal bumped his fingers. He got it out and looked at it, surprised a little by what he found.

The key to the Kendo Club room at school.

When was the last time he’d even been there?

But then, maybe that would help with his little problem. Some training. Actual honest training and strengthening, to toughen his body and stand up to the strain of using the Mighty Hand better.

As he left Seito University Hospital a nurse jumped quickly out of the way of the guy walking by standing up totally straight and with a bright smile on his face.

 

XXX

 

His hands wrapped around the grip of the bokken, but the wooden practice sword felt weird. It was too light, and the plain brown blade seemed so dull Kensei almost forgot he was looking at it.

But slowly, carefully he went into his usual stance. Took a few deliberate strokes through the air. He struck faster. The grip of his training weapon seemed to fill to expand to mold itself to his hands. Quicker and quicker the strokes came as Kensei went through his old warmup routine. Soon he was panting, sooner than when he’d still been doing regular practice, but smiling at the familiar feeling of his muscles flexing.

“HAA!” Kensei shouted as he made the final overhead stroke with his bokken.

That was when he a cold tingle run up his spine. Kensei had the feeling he wasn’t after all.

Automatically he tossed his harmless bokken aside and was reaching for his Gamer Driver. H stopped when he saw who was looking in; just a girl in the white blouse and dark skirt of the school’s summer uniform, with black socks coming to her knees. Her hair was black too, short and unremarkable. The only word that came to Kensei’s mind to think of her facial features was “sleek,” and he thought how weird that seemed. She was standing in the doorway, just watching him.

“Sorry, was I making too much noise?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not really. I’m new. I was thinking about joining the Kendo Club.”

Kensei chuckled and scratched the back of his head. “Well, there really _isn’t_ a Kendo Club anymore.”

“Really?” the girl replied, looking surprised. “I was kind of hoping to learn Hidenaga-sama’s techniques. I was hoping somebody here would still know how he fought.”

“Didn’t do him a whole lot of good,” Kensei answered.

She chortled and waved her hand back and forth. “Ah, mou! I’m not looking to win a real fight with it!” the girl laughed. “I’m just looking to do better at competitions.”

“Yeah well, as you can see, there’s nobody here anymore,” Kensei replied. “I’m just here to…well, to loosen up.”

“You could stand to loosen up. You looked like you thought like I was about to attack you for a second there,” she replied, smiling only faintly, like she was looking friendly while she was gauging him.

Kensei laughed. “I guess you’re right.” He held out his hand to the girl. “I’m Kensei.”

She shook it. “I’m Rei.”

“Rei what?”

“Just Rei,” she said. “Wait a minute, I remember…he had a little brother named Kensei, didn’t he?” Rei smirked.

Kensei scratched the back of his head again. “Yeah, my brother used to be in charge of the Kendo Club, and yeah he taught me a lot. I don’t really have time to teach anybody anymore, though.”  
            Rei raised one eyebrow in curiosity. “Oh? Joined another club?”

“Not exactly. Got an after school job instead,” Kensei replied.

“Ah,” she said, looking away and her face seeming to deflate a little with disappointment.

He reached out and touched her shoulder. “Hey, look. I’m here working out anyway. Why don’t suit up and we can go through a couple forms?”

But she only picked up a bokken of her own and went into a waiting stance. It was a bit rough by Kensei’s eyes, but it obviously wasn’t her first time. “I’ll just go like this,” Rei replied.

“You sure? Those things can sting pretty good,” Kensei tried to warn her.

“I can’t be afraid of little things like that.”

 _Neither can I_ , Kensei supposed. Rei looked back at him, eyes flickering with a hint of uncertainty and seeming to wait for him to make the first move. Suddenly he swung, the bokken aimed at her shoulder.

There was a CLACK sound and Kensei’s wooden blade bounced off Rei’s before it could hit her. He stepped back, almost tripping on his own back foot. Kensei suddenly swung again, lower than the first time. Again his practice sword CLACKED off hers before Rei sprang forward. The wooden blade slapped against the top Kensei’s shoulder and he grimaced at feeling the impact of the blow even through the protective padding he had on.

Suddenly he realized her next strike was coming straight at the side of his head and Kensei raised his practice weapon to block the strike just before contact. “You’ve got a lot to learn about the rules of this sport!” he said with clenched teeth.

Rei didn’t answer, she just broke the deadlock by leaning back and making a hard swing at his side. Kensei’s senses sharpened into focus and he blocked Rei’s attack with one of his own that made her arms shake. He lashed out with a move he never even tried in a competitive match, flicking the tip of the bokken between her hands and the guard on top of the grip. She gasped as the practice sword went spinning out of her hand and hit the wall

The surprise of suddenly being disarmed made Rei step back. She looked up wide-eyed at Kensei as he brandished his bokken at her, but then suddenly his vision started to swim. He let go of the bokken with one hand and pressed his hand to his forehead, trying to make his eyes clear up.

In that moment, Rei suddenly ducked low and knocked Kensei’s legs out from underneath him with a sweeping kick.

Everything went dark before Kensei’s back  even hit the floor. A minute later he was staring up at Rei, a slightly nervous look on her face.

She waved her hand back and forth in front of his face. “Hey…you okay, Kensei-kun?” Rei asked.

“I’m fine, I think,” he panted.

“You looked like you fainted or something…?”

“It _felt_ like you kicked me in the legs and knocked me down,” he groaned and sat up to look her in the eye.

Rei desperately held up her hands to placate him. “I’m sorry! Those were just my instincts!”

“Your _instincts_??” Kensei asked in disbelief. Then he settled back on his arms, and laughed. The anxiety drained out of Rei’s expression and after a second she laughed too. “Remind me never to fight you for real, then!” he exclaimed.

She stood up and giggled, taking Kensei by the arm and helping him stand up too. “I will, I promise! You sure you’re okay, though?”

“Yeah, just getting over a bug,” Kensei tried to wave it off.

Rei leaned on the wall with one hand. “Probably shouldn’t be doing something as intense as kendo then, huh?”

“This isn’t that intense,” Kensei answered, but picked up their practice swords to put them away. His phone chirped from in front of his bag where he’d left it and, ignoring a curious glance from Rei, flicked the open screen.

 **Hey can you come to the computer lab now** said a text message from Doku Dasao. Kensei looked over his shoulder at Rei again.

“Something important?” she asked.

“Kind of you. You need anything else?” he answered and asked.

“Oh, do you mean can I get out of here so you can lock up?” Rei smirked.

“I wouldn’t have put it _that_ way.”

She gave him a playful shove on the shoulder. “I know you wouldn’t, relax. But, oh, hey. Give me your number, okay? Then we can practice again later when you’re not busy.”

Kensei just looked at her over his shoulder still. Rei pursed her lips in confusion. “What? What’s wrong?”

“I just met you, but you already want my phone number?” he pointed out.

“How are you supposed to know me better if you run away from me like that?” Rei teased.

“Guess you’ve got a point,” Kensei admitted. “Like I said I’m pretty busy these days though.”  
            She gave a soft playful punch on the shoulder. “Hey, I’ll take all the help I can get! I need it.”

Kensei rubbed his over the padding he was wearing, and he noticed Rei leering behind her hand. “Not from what I just saw,” he replied.

Rei chuckled. “That’s _why_ I need help. To make sure I learn not to do that in a serious match.”

The world swam briefly in Kensei’s eyes but he managed a tired smile, and Rei looked at him hopefully. “You know what, if you’re okay with an unpredictable schedule after school, yeah. I could use something more normal like being able to spar again.”

She grinned and her eyes took on a teasing glimmer. “More normal? Hell, what do you _do_ after school that makes _this_ look normal, anyway?”

He shrugged and laughed, realizing he’d said too much. “I can’t really say too much about it—”

In response to that she laughed. “Oh what, do you have one of those jobs like you’re an ‘Inventory Manager’ or something but you’re really pushing a broom in the back of a convenience store or something?”

Everything seemed to loosen around Kensei. She’d given him an out all by herself that made sense. Briefly Kensei found himself wondering if maybe she was really onto him and just trying to make it seem like she didn’t on purpose. He put those thoughts away, though. Couldn’t go jumping at every shadow that _might_ hide an enemy.

“I don’t really need to tell you what I mean, right?” Kensei replied, trying as hard as he could to sound casual without sounding like he was trying hard. “I mean, I spend all day at school, then I go to work and then I get to do homework right up until I fall asleep. Don’t I get to take a break sometimes?”

Rei nodded at that. “Yeah, I get it. When do you get to just be _you_ for a little while?” She went out into the hall to let Kensei shut the door and lock it behind them.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Kensei sighed.

“Hey, I’ll check my schedule then I’ll text you to set something up,” Rei said.

Kensei nodded back at her. “Yeah,” he smiled a little. “No more leg-sweeping through, right?”

She laughed and nodded. “Promise!”

 

XXX

 

When the door opened Doku actually jumped in his chair and was halfway through yanking a Gashat out of his pocket before he recognized who’d come in.

“You okay, Doku-san?” Kensei asked.

“Just feeling a little edgy with what we’re about to do,” Doku answered.

“…you mean you still haven’t done it? You came _to school_ to upload it?”

Doku glared back at him, still holding onto his Gashat almost as if he was daring Kensei to repeat that. “And risk my family walking in and seeing me uploading that footage I caught? Go somewhere like a coffee shop or an internet café where anybody could see too? Nobody’s here today, this isn’t a great option but it’s one of the only decent ones.” He clicked on a folder on a laptop, and a window showing rows of video files opened.

“Did the Chibi Gamer get anything concrete from inside the portal?” Kensei asked.

“Yeah,” Doku breathed. “It couldn’t hold itself against the opening for long before it got pushed back out, but I found some stuff about the people inside. Even one of the Corrupture reforming back into a person in there.”

“And the stuff with Corsair and his buddies kidnapping those Cells?”

Giving Kensei an annoyed look, Doku stood straight up and grunted, “Of course, do you think I’m a total amateur or something?”

He was surprised by the strength of Kensei’s grip on both of his shoulders. “Calm. _Down_. It wasn’t an insult. You know it wasn’t,” Kensei said.

Kensei let go and Doku sat back down heavily. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just...if we put this video up, we’re really declaring war on Machina Vision. They’ll know it was us.”

“I know, but we need to show people what’s going on. I can’t believe Machina Vision cares if it means getting whatever it is they want,” Kensei replied. “We need to make sure people see what’s going on.”

A thought seemed to occur to Doku. “Hey, isn’t Mishiranu with you?”

When he heard that Kensei stopped and thought. “I haven’t heard anything since last night when we went out and met you at that creepy theme park. I guess I figured she and Poppy didn’t find anything and went home.”

“You that scared of me knocking you down again, Kensei-kun?” said a jeering voice from behind them. Both of them spun around and leaning in the doorway was Rei. “You had to make an excuse and sneak up here to talk to your buddy?”

“Who’s _she_?” Doku asked in surprise. “Doesn’t anybody around here knock?”

She smiled and waved. “I’m Rei! What are you guys doing?”

“Nothing important,” Kensei said as he tried to wave her off. “Just a video we made.”

But Rei stood on her tiptoes and looked over his shoulder at the screen of Doku’s laptop. He looked at Kensei and back at Rei, trying to decide if he should do something suspicious like close it to make sure she didn’t see. “A video about what?” she asked the obvious question.

“Oh, ah, well see this is kind of embarrassing,” Kensei said and ran his fingers through his hair. “See I’ve been trying for months to beat the world record on this game called Aqua Beat!, and I finally did so we’re gonna put up a video of that online so everyone can see.”

She squinted at them both for a second, then burst out laughing. “You mean like a video game?! Oh god, I saw you were goofy but I didn’t know you were a gamer dork too!”

Kensei shrugged and a kind of self-deprecating smile appeared on his face. Behind him Doku relaxed, but still gave Rei a wary look. “What can I say? Not every achievement can be winning an election or whatever,” Kensei replied in a joking defense.

“I’ll tell you what an achievement is: a guy making it through a romance movie with me without getting on his phone in the dark so he doesn’t go crazy,” Rei laughed.

“Who is this girl?” Doku whispered.

“We just met,” Kensei answered, “but apparently she’s my new sparring partner.”

“…what?” Doku asked, his eyes already opening wide with fear, probably that they’d been discovered.

Rei waved her hand and laughed. “At kendo! Not at _that_!”

Doku slumped back in his seat. “Yeah, right. Not at _that_. Like Hidenaga could ever get a girl to want to do _that_ with him?”

Kensei turned around and glared at him. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?!” he demanded, but smiled. Maybe Rei was the nosy type, but she hadn’t figured out what they were really up to.

Rei turned around too and started walking down the hall. “I have to go, but I’ll text you soon about another round, okay??” she called after her.

After she was gone Doku turned back to his laptop. “Hidenaga, you think we’re meeting weird people because of…you-know-what? Or were they always there, and you-know-what’s why we’re only seeing them now?” he asked.

“Maybe we should’ve been keeping our eyes open the whole time,” Kensei muttered and looked over his shoulder.

 

XXX

 

The status bar on Doku’s laptop went totally dark.

Kensei sighed and reached for his water bottle to take a drink, then noticed it was empty. He’d drunk the entire thing sitting around waiting for the upload to finish.

Immediately Doku’s fingers flew across the keys, opening windows to other sites. “You sure you’re okay doing this all by yourself?” Kensei asked him.

“Well, do _you_ already have a list of places to show this to make sure it gets seen by as many people as we can?” Doku asked.

            “…not really,” Kensei answered. Had he gotten so withdrawn after his brother died that he barely knew anything about social media?

            “Then I should probably take care of that part,” Doku replied without looking up.

            Kensei turned away. “Yeah, you’re right. Guess I’ll head home.”

            The teen had almost gotten to the door when Doku called out, “Hey, wait a minute.”

            “What is it?”

            It was a little while before Doku answered, but when he did his words came slow. “Thank you, Hidenaga.”

            “Huh? I didn’t do anything.”

            “No, you made go through with uploading this dumb video after all,” Doku said with a sigh, like he was letting something big out by saying it. “I mean, this is it. Machina Vision’s really gonna come after us when they find out about us putting evidence online about them. What if we aren’t strong enough?”

            Kensei shrugged and a helpless expression appeared on Doku’s face until he added, “We’ll just have to _be_ strong enough. Aren’t the heroes always up against some big powerful enemy in quest games?”

Doku shut his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “You sound just like Mishiranu,” he groaned, but smiled at the end of it.

“Need to try to call her, don’t I?” Kensei murmured. “Let me know when you’re finished with all that, okay? Make sure we send one straight to the Ministry of Health too, just in case something happens…”

“I will,” Doku smiled a little at the question before he turned back to his laptop.

 

XXX

 

A small buzzing.

There it was again, he was sure of it.

No, it wasn’t a small buzzing.

It something else.

Something familiar.

He’d heard it before, he knew it, but the sound was so faint.

What _was_ that damn noise?

            In irritation he tapped his pen against the blotter covering most of his desk.

            Then he recognized its source.

            Ayatsu whipped around to the energy cage in the corner of his office. The Navi hovering inside drifted backward in fear from the intensity of his angry gasze.

            “It’s you, isn’t it?” he said menacingly. “You’re making that noise just to irritate me. You can’t escape so you’re doing the next best thing.”

            “I’m not!” Poppy’s voice exclaimed. “I don’t even know what’s making that noise! Is that you?”

            “It’s not me!” Kiiko’s voice snapped back. “I think someone’s trying to call me.”

            Their captor glared harder into the cage. One side of the Navi recoiled but the other didn’t move, making it a lopsided retreat. The Navi quivered and bulged, then a red smartphone covered in stickers of cartoon hula dancers and smiling dolphins wearing sunglasses popped out and tumbled into the bars of the cage. It touched them and exploded in a burst of angry static. The noise immediately stopped.

            Ayatsu Shuugouteki glared at the cage for a minute longer as if he trying to inflict a little more fear on the Navi before he went and sat down again. After he was focused on his computer again, Poppy’s voice whispered, “Your ringtone is Island Dreaming?”

            Kiiko’s voice hmph’d. “I don’t have to explain what I like to you, onee!”

            But Poppy’s voice giggled softly. “It’s cute. You really like Aqua Beat!, eh?”

            “Shhhh!” Kiiko hissed as Ayatsu shot them another angry glance. Poppy giggled again and the Navi buzzed in place quickly, making Poppy think of a person crossing their arms and sulking.

 

XXX

 

            Terrifying creaking came from the corners of the old building. Cracks formed at the seams and dusted gushed out once, then the walls seemed to throb out and another shower of dust came.

            Standing on the rooftop of the building next door was the Amal Corrupture, waving his mismatched hands back and forth, sending streams of purple particles out and into the pulsing building through any crack it could find.

            Huge glowing eyes were shining through the material of the dome that made up his head as he wielded this power. Energy arced from one Gashat plugged into his body to another but now Amal hardly seemed to notice. It all issued from the Gashat plugged into the main socket on the back of his neck, the Gashat of Perfect Puzzle and Knock Out Fighter.

            His leader had special plans for that, he understood that more clearly. than he’d understood anything in his short life. Plans greater than even the strike he was getting ready to launch. The strike Amal needed a new army to carry out. A more focused, frightening army than the undead Corrupture Cells he’d relied on before.

            Then with one last heartstopping groan the walls of the building below him caved out. A huge cloud of grey and brown dust fountained into the sky. Then out of the dust came a wall of Cells.

            Hopping.

            They wore tattered robes, holding their arms straight out in front of them with long dirty claws tipping their fingers. On their shoulders were the same throbbing purple virus heads as all Corrputure Cells.

            In lines the new undead Cells hopped out of the collapsed building. Seeing his success Amal raised his clawed hand high and shrieked to his undead army. They looked up at were he was designating their target.

            GENM Corp. headquarters.

            Amal jumped down from the roof of the building and led his followers through the streets. When the Cells hopped through the street the area changed around them, low buildings changing into decrepit huts.

 

XXX

 

            “You don’t have it?! What do you mean you don’t have it?? This is genius!” Kamen Rider Rune insisted as he cruised through the streets, following the blip on his phone’s map indicating a Corrupture sighting. He flew against the flow of the people fleeing along the sidewalks below, who didn’t need Machina Vision’s app to know about the attacking monsters.

            “It’s genius to turn their own tech against them, yes,” Kamen Rider Utsura admitted. “Aren’t you afraid they’re tracking you if you install their monster alert app, though?”

            “You don’t think they’re doing that already anyway?” Rune retorted.

            There was no answer to that. There probably was no point.

            Soon Rune turned down another street and saw what he was looking for, but almost stopped and let out a laugh as he recognized what form the army of Cells took.

            Jiangshi? The least scary undead in the world?

            It was then then he noticed a few in the back had broken off from the rest. They were swarming over a pair of office ladies too slow to get away, dragging the two of them to the ground. Rune was already speeding over but the Cells battered the women with their hands, leaving wounds covered in purple static.

            “Arise, Sage Drake! Arise, Grandmaster!” Rune screamed in desperation as he played two of his monster cards. The insect-like robot and bespectacled dragon solidified out of their wireframes and immediately opened fire, Sage Drake with shining runes from his eyes and Grandmaster with a barrage of geisha dolls. The Jiangshi Cells were blown across the street and engulfed by the explosion of his combined attacks.

            Purple clouds swirled out of the explosion and reformed into Jiangshi Cells at the back of the group. Rune looked down at the two ladies who’d been attacked uncertainly as they struggled to sit up. “You two okay?” he called. Both coughed and one nodded slowly.

            Rune looked over his shoulder at the Corrupture who were getting farther away. He clenched his hand around the rail of his hover platform; Utsura would be on his way, but Rune had to limit the damage the monsters had a chance to do in the meantime. “Get to a hospital! We’re not too far from one!” he pointed in Seito University’s direction. The women looked up at him with confused expressions, but nodded.

            Then Rune was speeding away from them before the Corrupture army could get too far ahead of him. As he did he pulled another card from his deck…

 

XXX

 

            Flying on the back of his giant catfish, Utsura still couldn’t help shaking his head. They’d spent all afternoon releasing evidence that Machina Vision was up to no good, but still Rune thought it was a good idea to put something the company made on his phone??

            Even if it was something that told people about monster sightings…

            On a hunch he pushed the button on his belt and stuck his hand through the icon showing his fishing pole that appeared. This time, he needed to beat the Amal Corrupture once and for all. The monster had been evading all the different Riders for a while and collecting old Rider Gashats. Why, though? Was Amal biding his time until he was powerful enough to attack and wipe them out, or was something else going on? Utsura’d need a few new tricks to pull against a monster with so many tricks of his own.

            Suddenly he heard a noise like a muffled boom, then something huge and black shot by his side. Utsura whipped around and spotted a familiar shape cruising his way through the sky.

            _Of course_ it would happen now.

            The pirate ship was gaining on him fast, and already he could see Kamen Rider Corsair jamming the wheel to slam it into Utsura from the side. Utsura tried to steer away, but Corsair’s ship seemed faster than he’d ever seen it before. In less than a second it was right next to him and crashed into his fish.

            Utsura yelled and almost fell off, grabbing onto the catfish’s fins. He looked over and was sure Corsair was about to try to slam him again, only to freeze in horror as he saw an Auto Player taking aim with a cannon on the ship’s deck. A fraction of a second before it fired Utsura had already jumped off his fish Cruiser, the cannon’s shot blowing it into a storm of glittering shards.

            Desperately remembering what he’d been taught about making a safe landing Utsura held out his hands and somersaulted. He bumped and rolled before he slowed down enough to stand up again. Just in time to dance out of the way of Corsiar’s pirate ship before it hit the ground and went skidding past him.

            Kamen Rider Corsair himself jumped off the rear. “You’re not getting anywhere near that monster, _Oot-sue-rah_ ,” he spat.

            “And your little robots can handle him and all his friends?”

            Corsair spun his new serrated sword in his hand, tossed it into the air and caught it, holding it over his hand for a second before he levelled it at Utsura. He was really going all-out to try to intimidate Utsura that time. “My tech’s more powerful than yours, my company can afford to outfit me with backup, and I’ve had the best combat training available for _years_. What have _you_ got?”

            “I play video games,” Utsura answered with no hesitation.

            When he heard that Corsair turned around, tossed back his head and laughed. He turned back to Utsura and taunted. “Games? Sure, that’s all these are. Let’s see how you do at _this_ game!”

            “Then…let’s play,” Utsura answered.

 

XXX

           

            Creeping like a slow ocean tide, a grey veil spread over the entire street the Corrupture army was hopping down. Amal ignored it as the buildings transformed into a feudal ghost town around him. Even as the entire corner of a skyscraper disappeared under the influence of their power, leaving a blurred sliver of cloudy sky.

            Suddenly a man in a brown jacket made a break from his hiding place near the middle of the column of monsters. Three Jiangshi Cells broke off and surrounded him in one powerful jump. They tore into the poor fool leaving sparking purple wounds just like on the women Kamen Rider Rune had saved, but the rest of the undead hopped on without them.

            A park spreading open like a grassy green abyss in the middle of the city opened up in front of them. A few blocks past it Amal could see the pink square of the GENM Corp. logo on the upper floors of a building. He waved his huge metal fist for his minions to follow after him while he started into the park. Their power spread even to the ground in the park, washing outward and turning the bright green grass into blasted grey dirt.

            With their goal in sight, Amal made a strange chortling noise, grinding his new teeth in anticipation of the kill hard enough to shoot off sparks at the same time. His Jiangshi army made no noise at all except for their thunderous hopping behind him, but Amal didn’t need them for their ability to adapt to new situations. What mattered was they were unstoppable. Even _if_ something like a Kamen Rider actually got in their way.

            Another deafening crash from hundreds of Jiangshi landing from a hop together. Then again a huge hop as the Corrupture army advanced. The Jiangshi Cells were about to take another hop when suddenly the ground opened up into a pit, taking a whole fifth of the column into the darkness.

            Amal stopped in confusion as his soldiers dropped out of sight. Before he could give an order another huge hole opened in the ground at the back of the dirt field, even more of the Jiangshi disappearing into the ground.

            Next the ground erupted right in the middle of where the rest of the Jiangshi were standing. A huge grill bit exploded out of the dirt flinging undead all over the field. Most were immediately destroyed by the sudden eruption of the drill. They turned into clouds of smoke while most of the airborne Jiangshi hit the ground burst into smoke too. It all swirled around then hit the ground and reformed into Jiangshi again.

            The drill crawled out of the ground revealing a tube-shaped body on caterpillar tracks attached to it. It crawled along the ground tearing through the standing Cells, popping them into smoke that reformed into more Jiangshi at the end of the column.

            All of a sudden there was an angry roar and Amal charged over. He knocked the drill vehicle on its side with one punch from his metal fist. On the back of his neck the Dual Gashat literally glowed with power and Amal’s gauntlet doubled in size.

            “I activate Sign of Displacement!”

            The drill disappeared. Amal’s gauntlet smashed into the barren ground instead of destroying his target. It reappeared on the other side of the field underneath Kamen Rider Rune, flanked by his other monsters. Grandmaster splayed all his insect-like legs, and Sage Drake settled back on his haunches and gave the Corrupture a disapproving glare.

            “Next I activate Archive Search Engine to search my deck for any three cards of my choice and immediately put them in my hand!” Rune shouted. He flicked through the deck with his thumb and picked out three cards as he’d said. “Then I play two! Arise, Glyph Chaser!” Rune said as he placed one card. The last of his monsters, a glowing human outline, appeared out of a portal in the ground.

            “Lastly I play Chimeric Retrofit, and combine three monsters: Sage Drake, Wall Cracker,” he pointed to the drill vehicle, “and Glyph Chaser! Arise, Mind Cracker!”

            Circles of red light formed under each of Rune’s summoned monsters. They drifted into the spot on the middle the one occupied by the Sage Drake. The different creations layered together into one.

This new monster, the Mind Cracker, looked mostly like the same kind of small blue dragon as the Sage Drake. He was about the size of a horse with a long neck, but instead of glasses on the end of his snout, his head had an enlarged cranium that crackled with small sparks of power. Around his torso was an armored harness made of dull bronzed metal, but on the back was attached a turbine with a slim drill above the dragon’s head.

The drill was surrounded by a field of light where a human shape bulged out every few seconds. Jiangshi looking at it seemed to shiver a little, and Rune allowed himself a little smirk behind his mask at the power his combined monsters had.

Amal looked back at his followers then suddenly threw himself in Rune’s direction fist-first. Rune’s new Mind Cracker stared down the monster and the drill bit on his back spun so fast it became a blur

 

XXX

 

One angry swing of Corsair’s cutlass deflected the incoming fishing line. Sparks flew from it but Utsura whipped the weapon’s line back and whirled it above his head for another attack.

Kamen Rider Corsair spun and came back around with his flintlock pistol in his hand. A miniature trident stuck out of the barrel. Corsair pulled the trigger and it fired off on a long cable and stabbed into Utsura’s chest armor. Chuckling darkly Corsair yanked on the cable and pulled Utsura over to him, meeting his rival Riders with a ferocious uppercut on the jaw.

Utsura was knocked flying the other way until he hit the ground and skidded a few feet through the dirt. There was another sharp pull on the cable that forced Ustura up onto his knees. Letting out a yell Corsair charged him, the flashing cutlass in his hand aimed at Utsura’s neck. Just in time Utsura grabbed his Gashacon Catcher off the ground and held it up like a staff to block the deadly swing. Corsair’s blade was stopped but a white chunk flew off and dinged against Utsura’s goggles.

As suddenly as he could, Utsura swung his right fist at Corsair’s stomach trying to catch him by surprise. Machina Vision’s Rider stuck out his hand and caught the punch then sharply twisted Utsura’s arm. He groaned out loudly in pain while Corsair laughed. Utsura’s vision blurred badly for a second, and he sure it was more than just the pain from his arm.

“You’re not getting through! Your little friends are stuck dealing with whatever the monsters are up to without you,” Corsair taunted in a smug whisper. “Too bad for them. With you around they’re almost a threat.”

Utsura grunted, “You’re complimenting while you’re trying to break my arm? Never thought I’d say that in my life.”

“Not really,” Corsair replied and kicked Utsura hard in the chest. He skidded across the ground, his right arm wrenched crookedly out of Corsair’s iron grip. When he stopped Utsura couldn’t feel it anymore.

In a single jump Corsair was next to his rival’s motionless body. “You were _never_ as strong as me, though.”

“That’s a really bad habit, what you’re doing now,” Utsura groaned. He planted his left hand and tried to push himself up.

Corsair kicked his hand and he fell onto the ground again. “You have no idea how much time I have to spend being all nice and polite for the media. You think I spend all my time worrying about _you_?! I spend most of it dealing with _real_ problems; when people call in a Corrupture sighting they’re calling me!”

“I was _never_ as strong as you, huh?” Utsura muttered, wincing in pain.

“That’s right! Never!”

With his left hand Utsura managed to reach up and close the lever on his Gamer Driver. Suddenly his body seemed to contort crazily.

Then he stood up, transformed. He had eyes that covered his entire torso and stubby arms and legs covered in thick white armor. Kamen Rider Utsura had just been super-deformed!

And before Corsair had a chance to react Utsura swung his stubby working arm in a ferocious punch that collided with the side of Corsair’s head.

The pirate Rider turned into a blue missile until he crashed into the side of his parked pirate ship. His Auto Players on the deck looked down at him, paused for a second then jumped down and reached onto their back and into their belts for weapons.

But Corsair jump straight up and waved them back. “That wasn’t a bad hit. Too bad it’ll be your last one.”

Utsura didn’t respond with words. He jumped high into the air and came down with one chunky boot aimed at Corsair’s chest. Flintlock in hand again Corsair fired a short that expanded in midair and left a sizable dent in Utsura’s bulkier amor.

Still Utsura kept coming. His kick landed, covering Corsair’s entire body from head to waist and knocking him back against his ship again. Corsair hit it so hard the ship creaked against the ground until it was at a full 45-degree angle from where it had been parked just a few seconds before.

That time Corsair didn’t get up as fast as before. His hand was trembling as he fumbled for something to grip and pull himself to his feet.

But Utsura came running right at him with huge thudding steps. The raw power of his armored form had taken Corsair by surprise, but Utsura still couldn’t feel his right arm. If he couldn’t keep up his advantage and finish off the fight in a hurry he had a bad feeling Corsair would overwhelm him.

And now he knew for sure that Machina Vision wouldn’t stop with just humiliating the competition.

A goofy giant fist flashed out and slammed into Corsair’s chest. He staggered away from his pirate ship just as Utsura’s giant boot hit him right into the stomach. The pirate Rider roared in anger and came back swinging his cutlass over and over. Gashes formed all over Utsura’s armor while he tried to throw a punch that would land on his enemy, but Corsair easily ducked around them now that he realized what Utsura was trying.

Watching the two Riders fight among themselves was a figure in dark armor on a rooftop across the street. His finger brushed the trigger of his golden gun, but a thought seemed to occur to him and he holstered the weapon on his belt instead.

Then he slipped away into the shadows.

 

XXX

 

From out of the drill on Mind Cracker’s back lanced a beam of light. On the front was the outline of a human figure like Rune’s Glyph Chaser running along the ground, and it zigzagged back and forth through the Jiangshi hopping up to attack. It ran right through one undead monster and half a second after it did the unlucky Cell exploded. The Chaser went through another next to him and another and another and another, leaving a trail of smoke as his path through the field.

Scrambling across the ground on his many spider-like legs, the Grandmaster faced backwards at more Jiangshi hopping to chase after him. He sprayed wind-up monster dolls into the air behind him as he ran. A pair of toy ladybugs hit the cracked dirt in front of the Jiangshi hopping after him and exploded. A spray of dust covered the surprised monsters before the rest of Grandmaster’s deadly toys flew through it and exploded as they hit the pursuing Cells.

All of a sudden a shining arrow flew out from behind Grandmaster and pierced his shoulder. A burst of sparks jetted out from under his shoulder armor and the arm went limp. Another arrow came and shot right through the knee of one Grandmaster’s legs. Amal stood on the other side of the battlefield, a pink and yellow archery bow in his hands and another arrow already forming. It was aimed right at the Grandmaster’s head.

“I activate Roar of the Ancient Engines!” Rune yelled from his vantage point while he slapped down a card. Just before Amal could fire his arrow a huge grinding like an earthquake hit the area. The sudden force threw Amal’s arms high and his arrow went shooting off into the sky instead.

The glowing eyes inside Amal’s dome seemed to narrow and he levelled his robotic fist at the Grandmaster. It flew off at blinding speed, and with all of his own Rune slapped another card onto his Battaifield. “I play the Mask of Hais!”

As soon as he’d finished his shout a grinning red mask formed over the Grandmaster’s face. The area around him distorted until Grandmaster was only a red spot surrounded by silver. Amal’s rocket fist disappeared into the distortion and became a vague red shape. Soon it crashed into something with a CRUNCH. Amal peered into the distorted area seeming to try to see the remains of his target.

Suddenly something came shooting back out of the area. A silver missile with a happy smile and blushing cheeks painted on the nose. It blasted into Amal’s chest and a roaring explosion gushed outward from the Corrupture’s body.

Kamen Rider Rune stared into the bright fireball of his monster’s explosion, clinging to the railing of his platform. The Blushing Beauty was Grandmaster’s strongest attack, but Rune had never had to try it on something he couldn’t even categorize. Something like the Amal Corrupture.

But as the smoke and fire cleared the first thing Rune could see was a glowing arrow shooting out. By then the distortion had cleared around the Grandmaster, the shot tearing a hunk of metal out of his torso. The robot stumbled around crazily and opened and closed his mouth but no sound came out. Glowing energy collected in front of Amal’s bow as he prepared for a gigantic shot.

Then he was interrupted by the sound of Mind Cracker’s oversize drilling spinning to life. His Chaser-beam rushed out from the tip and ran right through Amal’s back, stunning the monster for a fraction of a second and grabbing the bow out of his hands before he could fire it.

But then Rune blinked and Amal slashed his tiger-like claws through the Chaser, smashing it into a hundred glittering pieces. Behind him, the Mind Cracker monster gulped and started charging his drill for another shot. Ignoring Mind Cracker, or maybe not caring at all, Amal pounced like a cat at Rune’s other wounded monster.

Above the battle Rune drew a new hand and checked the health point tallies on his monsters. He knew he couldn’t keep this up for long.

“Damn it Hidenaga, where are you?!”

 

XXX

 

Where he was, was taking another slice from Corsair’s sword across the chest. Finally enough feeling came back to his right arm to try to throw a punch or two with it.

Corsair’s sword raked across the side of his arm and numbed it all over again. But while the pirate focused on that Utsura threw another punch with his other fist. It connected with Corsair’s chest armor hard enough to leave a frightening crack in the armor.

“Eat THIS!” Corsair said as he suddenly jammed the barrel of his flintlock against Utsura’s own chest and pulled the trigger.

Utsura could only scream as he was blasted right off the ground. When he landed he rolled, his armor shimmering. When he stopped he’d reverted back to his slimmer Level 30 form.

“No more playing around,” Corsair grunted.

An orange Rider Gashat was in Utsura’s good hand. “That’s what games are for! Relax, buddy!” he retorted. He slipped the Gashat into his Driver’s backup slot. Before it could arm him with something new Corsair growled angrily and fired his gun once, twice, three times. Utsura crouched and jumped over the shots, but he was moving slower than before…

“ **Mighty Skeeeeeeeeetch!** ”

A title screen formed above Utsura, starting high and then dropping as he came back to the ground. Out of it floated a stubby orange-plated robot who immediately split apart into a heavy backpack and four pods that attached to Utsura’s wrists and hips. Finally the head came down on top of his, forming into a beret that replaced this pointed sage’s hat. “ **Pennellata Level 33!** ”

“Have some color,” Utsura said as two mental tentacles slithered out of his backpack. Both had spray nozzles on the ends.

One whipped through the air firing in a steady spray and covering Corsair’s goggles, chest and jacket in a sheet of red and yellow paint. The other fired a barrage of brightly-colored projectiles shaped liked fish out of its barrel. They flew like bullets out at the Auto Players waiting on Corsair’s pirate ship, splattering hard enough to knock the androids off their feet.

“I’ll get you for that, GENM!” Corsair roared, sounding angrier than Utsura could ever remember. He fired in an arc as fast as his finger could pump the trigger. In response another two metal arms slipped out of Utsura’s backpack with all four stretching out and suspending him in the middle like a giant spider.

The metal tentacles stretched up and lifted Utsura out of the way, Corsair’s shots passing through the opening between the spindly appendages.

Before Corsair had a chance to attack again, Utsura retracted the rear tentacles into his backpack. He braced himself before a powerful blast of paint from his backpack shot him into the air.

“ **River Sketch Critical Finish!** ” his belt seemed to yell a challenge to his enemy. His backpack split open and a cannon barrel popped out then fired a huge paint bullet in the shape of a fish. It hit Kamen Rider Corsair and exploded all over the area where he’d been standing. Corsair was knocked along the ground a good twenty feet before he stopped sliding. As soon as he stopped sliding Corsair planted his hands behind him and was already getting back up, but his body was shaking some from the damage he’d taken.

            And Utsura had called up a ring of icons around himself before that even had a chance to happen. He hit the one showing a motorcycle with a paint roller for its front wheel and jumped, leaving a trail of paint on the street as he drove away as fast as he could.

He’d only delayed his battle with Corsair, but maybe that would be enough.

 

XXX

 

Rune held his next card high, hoping maybe that would give it more of an effect like the people on the show seemed to think would happen.

“I play Ties to the Past!” he declared before Amal had another chance to attack. Instantly the grey ground behind Amal cracked open and loops of frayed cables jumped out. They wrapped themselves around his wrists and neck.

In that moment of vulnerability both of Rune’s monsters attacked at the same time. Mind Cracker fired his drill and sent his Chaser-beam running at Amal’s side while Grandmaster limped far enough to face the Corrupture. The doors on his midriff flipped open to fire.

Then two of the Gashats plugged into Amal’s body flashed, drawing power from one in the back of his neck.

Then Amal wasn’t alone.

One of them had a bulbous red head, a tiny silver face of a horned oni halfway up the front. He had on a red vest and white greaves contrasting with the black over the rest of his body, and had the face of a long-nosed goblin on the armor of the shoulder Rune could see. He held a long black katana in each hand that he looked eager to use despite his immobile face.

The other was covered in gold-colored plating with splotches of blue on his shins, right arm on the left side of his flat head. Constructs like antlers climbed out of his back that Rune realized were actually exhaust pipes.

“Behold the great Kaiden, of the 50th dan!” said the first as he held out his swords, then casually lashed out with one to his right and obliterated Mind Cracker’s Chaser-beam before it could even touch him.

“Let’s hit the road in 49th gear! I’m Motors!” said the other monster. He stepped forward onto a sleek black motorcycle that formed in front of him, a big purple virus shape like the Corrupture Cells’ heads mounted over the front wheel.

And the two monsters attacked. Kaiden lunged at the Grandmaster, who fired off a storm of his exploding dolls. Sharp-toothed geishas and princesses, a pair of spiders and blue and red dragons. With stupefying ease Kaiden swung drew one of his swords from over his shoulder, knocked the first two killer dolls into the sky, then before Rune even realized he’d done it Kaiden had sheathed his sword again.

Explosive dolls came and as soon as they were at closing distance Kaiden whipped out his sword and batted them away. Again just as Rune had processed the attack was deflected Kaiden had sheathed his sword on his back.

“Your lowly skills are unworthy of my blade,” Kaiden said with a dismissive huff. Suddenly he dashed across the empty space between him and Grandmaster. Rune’s robot desperately fired off a wind-up bat doll at his attacker, but as the smoke cleared there was only a tiny dirty mark on Kaiden’s vest. With a yell Kaiden swung both of his swords, slicing through Grandmaster’s body with a powerful X-cut.

Grandmaster just froze in place before his color faded and he reverted to a wireframe model before that flickered away too. Rune looked away and sighed. A Level 15 monster and a Level 50 monster…it had never been a contest at all. If he’d had one card, one that would let him combine monsters to a higher tier, then maybe some strategy and some status affliction cards…

But he didn’t have time to think about that, there was already another monster attacking his dwindling forces. Motors loudly revved the engine on his motorcycle and laughed, a sound Rune could hear even over all that noise. “Attack, Mind Cracker!” Rune commanded. Motors cackled, revved his bike again and zoomed just as Mind Cracker’s drill whirred and fired.

The Chaser ran after Motors who turned sharply, with the Chaser turning at a perfect angle to keep after Motors. Looking over his shoulder Motors laughed again, and without warning the pipes on his back bulge and spewed shining green bombs all over the ground.

Chaser’s beam changed direction to avoid them and a chain of blasts. As it swerved Rune spotted something else: he’d been so focused on Amal and his monsters, the Jiangshi army had hopped out of the field. They were already disappearing up a street heading toward the GENM building.

At Rune’s command the Chaser-beam switched direction and went after the Cells instead. Motors snickered and turned his bike around, going after the Chaser-beam.

“I activate Coolant Spillage!” Rune turned over a card and a huge pool of light blue liquid spread out over the field between the Chaser-beam and Motors’ bike.

“Try harder than that, slowpoke!” the monster laughed and popped a wheelie. The pipes on his back belched flames, jumping his bike into the air and over the slick Rune had created. Motors swerved around to come up on the Chaser-beam and held out his right arm, Rune seeing for the first time it had a snake’s head instead of a hand.

And Motors snapped it down on the Chaser-beam’s head. Right away the Chaser stopped and shattered into glittering fragments that tumbled through the air and disappeared into nothingness.

Then came a shrill metal cry from Amal, who pounced on the Mind Cracker himself and slashed his claws across Rune’s monster. Mind Cracker jerked in surprise then froze, faded to a wireframe model and disappeared.

            Kamen Rider Rune clenched the railing in front of him. With his summoned monsters all defeated, there was nothing he could do except watch as the Corrupture army turned away and left him behind.

            He was sure he saw the Amal Corrupture smirk and chuckle at him before joining the rest of the monsters on their way to the GENM building.

 

XXX

 

            A few GENM employees had been trying to make a run for it, but they panicked and ran back to the building as an _ocean_ of Corrupture Jiangshi closed in on it from every direction.

            Rune looked down from his platform and shook his head.

            A Taiceranego Gashat had seemed so unique, so destined to shake up the battles. Then as soon as a really powerful enemy showed up, it had been overwhelmed like nothing. Even when his monsters had a chance to regenerate, they’d be no match for this new Amal Corrupture.

            He slipped out his other two Gashats. To think back on when Level 3 had seemed so amazing. Rune actually felt invincible when he got his first power-up. But now…

            …now there were layers upon layers of virus-headed hopping, reviving zombies underneath him. What good would such low powers do now?

The Jianghshi Cells got to the walls of the GENM building, but Rune looked on in surprise as they didn’t hop through the doors or windows. Instead, the first ones to get to the wall braced themselves on it with their arms and planted their feet. The ones behind them hopped onto their shoulders and did the same thing, and then the next Jiangshi Cells climbed up to the top and braced themselves on the wall too.

Watching them, a chill started crawling up Rune’s body as he realized what they were doing.

They were trying to physically cover the building.

Higher and higher the Cells climbed up the sides, looking back in the windows and buzzing threateningly at the terrified workers trapped inside. Rune was about to change back to the only form he had with _some_ power to fight back.

Then he heard it.

A long, hollow note from a wooden gong.

Rhythmic clacking from a ring of beads, somehow making the entire unholy army of Jiangshi Cells go silent.

Rune let out a long sigh that turned into a laugh as he looked over just in time to have his suspicions confirmed. Walking up to the huge mass of undead monsters was Kamen Rider Utsura, clad in a baggy orange robe over his yellow undersuit and wielding a sutra gong and ring of prayer beads. Jiangshi Cells hurried to get out of his way, but they were reduced to crawling on their hands and knees by the power his rhythm created.

“About time you got here!” Rune called.

“You can’t rush spiritual achievement,” Utsura replied serenely.

That got a tired but relieved laugh out of Rune. He was so glad to see someone there to help he didn’t even mind the stupid joke.

Utsura tapped the gong hovering in front of him and the echo from the note it made seemed even louder. With immense satisfaction Rune watched as their enemies covering the sides of the building were starting to wobble. Again Utsura hit his gong and the Cells on the highest layer they’d managed to climb to wobbled hard enough to fall off the others’ shoulders.

An angry snarl drowned out the sound of Utsura’s prayer beads as he matched his next signal. It was Amal, taking aim at the Rider’s head with his neon-colored bow. Rune’s stomach clenched again.

Before Amal fired, someone else did. A booming sound split the air and a huge cannonball exploded behind Utsura.

The Rider gave a scream of surprise before he hit the ground. Above, Kamen Rider Corsair’s pirate ship sailed down, the flintlock in his hand smoking from the shot that had just flattened Utsura.

Right away, it was as if nothing had happened. The Cells hopped forward climbing on top of each other to cover the entire building, completely ignoring Utsura and Corsair as the pirate ship landed.

            In desperation Rune looked down at the display on his arm but the countdown over the images of his two monsters was still a hostile red. He wouldn’t be allowed to revive them yet, even if he had a card to do that!

            “Is that stupid form of yours good for anything but brainless zombies?” Corsair snapped scornfully. Without waiting for an answer he charged, sword flashing through the air and pummeling Utsura with the serrated blade.

            But Utsura was clearly done playing nice too. He danced back away from one of Corsair’s swings and almost stumbled into the Corrupture rushing past in frantic hops. He whipped the Monk of Temple Gashat out of his belt and in one fluid motion replaced it with River Harmony and was already whirling his fishing pole to attack. The giant hook on the end hit Corsair in the chest and knocked him on his back.

“Stay down. I’m not warning you again,” Utsura panted.

“You won’t need to!!” Corsair screamed as he jumped back up. He aimed his gun and squeezed off a shot that sounded five times louder than normal to Utsura’s exhausted mind. The shot hit his chest and exploded, blowing a dazed Utsura backward.

“ **High Seas Critical Strike!** ” The next thing Utsura knew Corsair was swinging at him from a rope suspended from the mast of the pirate ship. Corsair’s boot glowed with power that spread over his body and burned away most of the paint from Utsura’s earlier attack. He crashed into Utsura like a wrecking ball and knocked the other Rider down the street skidding along on his back and knocking Jiangshi over as he went. Corsair’s backup of Auto Players jumped down from the pirate ship to chase after him, while Corsair himself panted and rested the blade of his cutlass against his shoulder armor. A bright graphic saying GAME CLEAR appeared above him and a victory fanfare played.

When Utsura finally stopped his Gamer Driver groaned **gashuuun** before his armor shimmered and faded away. Rune started to float over to him, but Kensei looked up and shook his battered before he slumped back and didn’t move.

An unconscious Kensei Hidenaga was the only thing lying there when the Auto Players caught up to him, grabbed his arms and carried him back to where Kamen Rider Corsair waited.

“Throw him on deck,” Corsair grunted.

They did, and Kensei landed in a heap.

Corsair jumped to the wheel on the rear. An artificial wind filled the ship’s sails, carrying it away over the skyscrapers.

 

XXX

 

It was until he was a block away from the chaos that Doku Dasao stopped to catch his breath. He looked back over his shoulder at the GENM building, and even though he knew what to expect, his blood still seemed to freeze in his veins.

A web of Jiangshi Cells had completely covered the entire building by then. Even if he still had his monsters, getting rid of all the Corrupture would’ve been hopeless. But then, even more horribly, they started to lean in and the building seemed to be shrinking in from the sides.

Not just that the Corrupture were attacking the walls with their hands, the whole building was actually flattening in on itself. The edges dragged inward, the roof getting lower with every second Doku watched. Cells fell off the top into the masses along the bottom as the building was shrunk somehow by the monsters’ horrific power.

After a few minutes all of GENM Corp.’s headquarters had been compressed into a tiny point of light as the Cells webbing it fell off each other, their job done. Then the ball of light that was all that was left of GENM Corp. headquarters dissolved away, becoming a string of particles that flowed up toward the distant portal in the sky that the Corrupture called home.

The Kamen Riders had failed.

While he recovered his strength Doku saw the Cells turn and hop away again in another direction. He had a feeling he knew where they’d go after destroying one company that supplied Kamen Riders.

He just had to make sure he got there first.

 

**See you Next Game**

 

XXX

 

**Phew, that was a long one and it sure didn’t end well for the NG Riders. A hero needs to be able to handle danger, and we’ll have to see how well they handle _this_ danger. And what’s Zero up to, ignoring a shot at Corsair like that?**

 

**Just in case Utsura getting knocked back to “slim” form from “SD” form seems weird, I dunno. =P KR does that a lot with a Rider getting blasted out of a powered-up form to a weaker one to show he’s losing, and that’s basically what it was at the time.**

**Hope you’ll look forward to seeing what comes next.**


	25. A Night of Climax

Night was settling in as Kamen Rider Corsair’s flying pirate ship came down on Machina Vision’s landing pad.

            But the dark skies didn’t mean anything to Kamen Rider Zero, who stood in the shadows of an adjacent rooftop. Through a pair of gold-plated binoculars he watched a group of Auto Player androids carry someone off the ship and into a doorway. Corsair himself pulled the Gashat out of his visor and followed after them, but he stumbled every few steps.

            Seemed that for all his talk, his fight with Kamen Rider Utsura done a number on him after all. The timing couldn’t be better.

            All Machina Vision’s attention would be focused on their valuable prisoner. Zero might never get a better chance to get inside their headquarters without being noticed.

            Silently Zero reconfigured his binoculars back into a pistol, then aimed at a dark corner of Machina Vision’s roof. A thin line shot across the space between the buildings. Zero got out a small wheel with handles, hold it over the line then slid silently across it to Machina Vision’s building. While he crouched in hiding Zero tweaked button on the side of his belt, then suddenly he turned transparent.

            He darted around the corner and grabbed the door just before it had a chance to slam and lock itself. The Auto Player guards flanking the doors to Ayatsu Shuugouteki’s office didn’t even flinch as Zero snuck past them, completely concealed by his stealth system. Zero ducked into a dark corner and shut it down before it had a chance to overheat.

            Waiting. That was the worst part about a break-in, even if Zero knew it meant he finally had a shot at this.

            Finally, he thought. Was that even the right word? Had it even been that long that he’d been waiting for his chance?

            Then he heard the door handles click open, and Ayatsu Shuugouteki stepped out with an uncharacteristic smile on his face. At his side was his hulking bald bodyguard, hands at his sides as he kept pace with Ayatsu.

            Zero went transparent again before jumped into the air, somersaulted over the doors and darted inside before they had a chance to close again.

            Ayatsu’s office was huge, full of awards and shelves full of expensive books. At the back was a teak desk with writhing serpentine dragons carved into the front of the corners. Zero shut off his stealth and looked right past all of it, though. He knew Ayatsu had never read any of those books, and he knew that none of Machina Vision’s really worthwhile secrets were kept there. They were kept in the part of the building where he was going now.

            There was one thing in the building that Ayatsu Shuugouteki wouldn’t dare move until he was sure beyond a shadow of doubt it was safe. Sitting there in the corner of the office was that thing: a birdcage with bars of energy, holding a tiny ball of light with flittering fairy wings.

            As soon as Zero appeared the Navi let out a gasp of shock and recoiled from the sight of him. He drew his golden pistol.

            “Kuroto-san…are you sure you can do this?” Poppy’s voice asked, and she almost managed to keep the quaver out of her voice.

What she would’ve given for a Bugvisor to vacuum him up!

Then the shot came. The sound was only a muffled pop. It didn’t even go through the cage, instead the bullet went through where the cage bars met on the top. A few sparks fell and the bars fizzled down into the stand with no more power feeding into them.

            Part of Navi jerked forward and fluttered to the edge of where the cage had been, clearly in a hurry to get away from Zero. The other side hung back, as if in disbelief. “…why?” Poppy’s voice asked.

            “Because I’m here to deny Machina Vision any advantage it has,” Zero replied in his electronically-garbled voice. “Like having a Navi.”

            He slipped over to a door in the side of the room and without another word ducked inside. Navi flew over after him but the lounge room on the other side, though it offered a breathtaking view of the city, was empty. Zero had disappeared.

            “What now?” Poppy asked. “If that really was—”

            “Then we need to find help,” Kiiko finished for her. Navi squeezed through the gap between the doors to Ayatsu’s office, floated high to stay out of sight of the guards, and buzzed down the hall.

            It was going to be the beginning of a chaotic night, both women were sure.

 

XXX

 

            Darkness.

            Being covered in darkness was starting to seem familiar, and as he realized that Kensei’s mind panicked and he thrashed around, trying to break out of wherever he was. He thought he saw snakes biting into his arm, the one filled with a game villain’s poison. Then a bright light appeared in front of his eyes.

            He sat up gasping, and as he did Kensei could make out that he was sitting in a tiny cell, with bars of some kind of humming energy. Those must have been what looked like snakes as he waved his arms around trying to wake up.

            Kensei shut his eyes and slowed his breathing to get himself under control. He remembered being shot from behind by Kamen Rider Corsair and losing consciousness. The last thing he Kensei wanted to do was let them think he’d be an easy victim, before he had some idea what was going on.

            The only thing Kensei could see was another cell across the hall from his. It was empty, no bars flickering in front of it. But Machina Vision _had_ jail cells, that was disturbing enough. What other kinds of people besides opposing Kamen Riders might end up in there?

            “You’re awake!” someone whispered. Kensei’s heard jerked toward the noise and standing, there half-bent over, was a man wearing a white lab coat. His face was shining with sweat and his hands shook. He kept glancing over his shoulder, but quickly so it probably wouldn’t look like he was checking to see if anyone was looking at him.

            “Who are you?” Kensei said, but kept his voice low. He had the feeling the man was taking a terrible risk to talk to him.

            “I can’t say,” he whispered. “But you need to find some way to escape. I found out what Machina Vision’s really planning…why they captured those zombie Corrupture before.”

            “What?” Kensei asked quickly.

            The tech whispered even lower. “They plan to use the Corrupture to find a way to connect everyone. Make everyone into one giant combined brain, but different people.”

            “Like a…hive mind? Is that what those are called?”

            That got a frantic nod from the tech. “You have to find a way to get out! You have to find a way to stop them!”

            Kensei nodded back. “I need my games or I’m not going to get very far.”

            More sweat formed on the tech’s forehead and dribbled into the shiny slick covering his entire face already. “I don’t know where those are! You don’t have any idea the risk I’m talking coming down here just to warn you!”

            All of a sudden he squawked in surprise and was pulled backward. Kensei fought down an urge to jump up and attack. A second later a man in a dark purple suit stepped in view, with a bald hulk in a black suit following behind him and dragging the tech by the neck. Kensei easily recognized the first man, in the purple. It was Ayatsu Shuugouteki, head of Machina Vision.

            “I was just checking on the integrity of the cell systems, sir!” the tech exclaimed. “I was a little worried since we’ve never held a—”

            “Save it,” Ayatsu interrupted him, waving off the excuse without even looking at the tech. “You don’t have clearance to be in an area this secure. I know every single person in this office who does.”

            The hulk made a questioning kind of grunt. Ayatsu nodded. “Shut him up,” he said. The black-suited hulk dragged the screaming tech out of sight. Ayatsu folded his arms and looked Kensei in the eye.

“Kamen Rider Utsura, I presume,” he said with a genteel smile.

            “Why are you even trying?” Kensei asked.

            “I’m not sure what you mean,” Ayatsu replied, his smile staying firmly in place.

            “You had somebody launch a sneak attack on me and now you have me in a cell,” Kensei replied. “Let’s not pretend here.”

            Ayatsu shrugged but still his smile didn’t move. “ _You_ put a slanderous video about my company up on the internet, making all kind of outlandish claims about Machina Vision having insidious plans. I’d hardly say _you’re_ innocent, but that’s not what I want to discuss.”

            Kensei rested his hands on his knees and made no expression. “What _do_ you want to discuss, then?”

By then the black-suited hulk had reappeared at Ayatsu’s side. “An offer,” the CEO explained. “I’m prepared to let you out of there and let you see a little of what we do here as an act of good faith.”

“And what if I don’t deserve your good faith?”

Ayatsu said evenly. “Then I don’t think my friend here would like that very much, and he’d have to discourage you. Physically.” He glanced over his shoulder at the man in black. “That arm of his looks like it’s in pretty bad shape already, wouldn’t you say, Tousen?”

The hulk nodded silently.

“I bet that’s where you’d start with him, wouldn’t you?”

The hulk nodded again.

Kensei still didn’t move, only looking up into Ayatsu’s probing eyes. The CEO hand a hand curled into a fist and tapped it slowly against his chin, patiently waiting for an answer. He held all the cards, after all.

“All right, let’s hear your offer,” Kensei said and stood up. Immediately his vision started to swim and he fell back down, hitting his head on the back wall of his cell.

“Looks like it’s worse than we thought,” Ayatsu said casually. “Actually, this will probably work even better. Tousen, get a wheelchair for our guest. One of the ones with the straps…”

 

XXX

 

Tousen, who Kensei could only assume in his barely coherent state of mind was the bald man in the black suit, tightened the straps down around his arms tighter than was probably necessary. Looked like he was stuck in the wheelchair even if he wasn’t weak from the poison. Part of his mind wondered if he might even survive to hear Ayatsu’s offer, but another part fought down that thinking. Kamen Riders weren’t allowed to give up.

“Don’t struggle, he’s watching for that,” Ayatsu said to Kensei, then straightened up and walked down the hall.

It ended at a metal door that split down the middle and went into a hall that was so white it was almost painful to look at. Fortunately it was clear that Ayatsu didn’t want Kensei to do that, instead gesturing at the row of windows in the wall looking into a clean room where techs in white environment suits worked on chips and computer equipment.

“Where we make the miracles happen,” Ayatsu declared proudly. “Corsair’s Gashat is being tuned to receive new powers right now,” he pointed into one window where the all-too-familiar blue Gashat was in pieces on three layered glass shelves. “That’s one of our achievements I’m most proud of.”

“Expansion packs for Kamen Rider powers…that _is_ pretty impressive,” Kensei admitted.

“And not just that, we’ve uncovered the means to create Level 50 games again. Machina Vision is a true powerhouse,” Ayatsu grinned.

Kensei’s arm twitched. Tousen grunted warningly as he pushed the wheelchair. “Hey, I’m itching over here,” Kensei spoke up.

Ayatsu shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ll just have to endure. You’re a Kamen Rider, I’m sure you’ve lived through worse.”

They’d gotten to the end of the hall and another door split open for them. On the other side was a large room with tall banners of promotional art from video games hanging from the ceiling. Kensei recognized the pirate from High Seas Scourge, and the merry-go-round and roller coaster could only belong to that Scream Park game.

There were some he didn’t recognize, though. One of the banners showed a delinquent-looking boy with a ridiculously tall pompadour hairstyle and tape tied around his wrists. On the bottom the banner said Shikiretsu Rumble. Past that was a castle with blocks dropping out of the sky to form the walls, unsurprisingly it showed the name as Taddle Dungeon, another one of their Game Area controlling Gashats. Another banner showed a blonde woman in a dark suit, holding up a suspiciously familiar golden pistol above the name Cold Scope. The last banner showed a muscular bald man in trunks yelling and flexing his biceps, the name given as 10-Count Wrestling.

“Those are some impressive-looking games,” Kensei observed. “Didn’t think you guys owned the Taddle series, though.”

“We’re going to be making GENM of America a very generous offer for that property soon,” Ayatsu said. “So sad to hear about their local branch.”

“Sad could be what happens here next,” Kensei pointed out gently, and Tousen gave him another warning grunt. “Those Corrupture might be headed here too.”

“Oh, they’re _definitely_ headed here next. I’ve already seen that,” Ayatsu said with a slightly smug smile and shrug of his shoulders. “The Corrupture won’t find this such easy pickings. That’s sort of the offer I’m willing to make you now, Utsura.”

Kensei raised one eyebrow. “About joining up with you?”

Ayatsu’s smile immediately faded ad he looked Kensei straight in the eye. “You and your friends have ruined some chances I was banking on to give Machina Vision some good press. Think how good it’ll look for us to offer you a new home with GENM destroyed, even after all the nasty stories you made up about my company, and how good it’ll be to utilize your talents for the winning side. That was a real compliment, son. I don’t give that much to the competition vert often.”

“So, you’d be able to upgrade my equipment like you’re upgrading Corsair’s now?” Kensei asked.

But Ayatsu waved his hand back and forth dismissively. “Really? The procedure isn’t compatible with such obsolete designs.” He stepped back and framed Kensei’s face with his fingers for a second. “You know what, how about ‘Gekitotsu Warball’ for you? It’s something we’re working on, guaranteed to be pure gold. A contact sport with robots, with all kinds of possibilities for taking out other the other team’s players!”

“Let me guess, you’re planning to make GENM of America a very generous offer for Gekitotsu Robots, too?” Kensei asked.

Ayatsu looked up and smiled at Tousen. “Kid learns fast, doesn’t he?” Tousen didn’t answer, but with how Ayatsu immediately looked back down at Kensei he probably hadn’t been expecting one. “But let me guess, you’d like to try a game from our new line instead, the ones that let you control the area in a fight! We’ve got some great ones lined up for that, too! You play any of those puzzle games?”

“Not really.”

That didn’t seem to slow down Ayatsu at all. “Ah, you’re so tricky I bet you’d pick it up in no time. We’ve got one of those in the works, we’re calling it Gem Board because you match gems on the ground and they can make all kinds of crazy things happen!”

“What’s the other option?” said Kensei. “If I’m not interested.”

            “I’m glad you asked,” Ayatsu replied, chuckling with a dark undertone. “Bring him in, boys.”

            Tousen turned the wheelchair around to see a pair of Auto Players lead in a man in a white lab coat by the arms. They stopped in front Kensei and both took a step to the side to let the man stand there, staring straight ahead. “Recognize this charming fellow?” Ayatsu asked.

            With a chill in the bottom of his stomach, Kensei realized he did. It was the tech who’d been caught trying to give him a warning before. The sweat on his face had been wiped clean, and his eyes were totally blank with no sign at all that he recognized the person in front of him. He didn’t say a word, didn’t make a move.

            “You see how effective our employee loyalty program is!” Ayatsu crowed and clapped his hands together quietly.

            “You lobotomized him,” Kensei whispered.

            “That’s such a horrible word!” Ayatsu replied, an exaggerated expression of being offended on his face. “We’ve simply made him receptive to the next step of our plan, once we get to that stage. Until then he’ll only think what he’s told to think, only do what he’s told to do. And he’ll never complain, wander off or underperform again.”

            Kensei looked away. “You lobotomized him,” he repeated.

            “We haven’t cut out his mind,” Ayatsu replied. “It’s in a state of dormancy, before it’s truly awakened. The same way we’ll awaken everyone once the technology finishes development.”

            He bent forward and levelled a quiet menacing look straight into Kensei’s face. “We are talking about the evolution of mankind here, _Utsura_. You can either be at the forefront and skip the line, or you can end up like _him_ until we’re ready to throw the big switch. If then.”

            Do the ends justify the means, the eternal question, Kensei wondered.

            It didn’t get a chance to confront Kensei Hidenaga for long. All of a sudden there was a sound of a huge explosion that rocked the building hard enough to knock Ayatsu and Tousen down. Even Kensei’s wheelchair tipped over and landed with a crash.

            Ayatsu got to his feet. “Looks like the negotiation phase is over.”

 

XXX

 

            A huge cement chunk was pulled out of the wall of the Machina Vision building as the Amal Corrupture recalled his robotic fist. It locked back into place and he turned and aimed at another point on the outside of the building. He fired off his fist again, hitting high up on the side, hard enough to actually rock the building and formed a frightening crack in the foundations of one corner.

            Around him his army of Jiangshi Cells hopped, spreading out to surround the Machina Vision headquarters building.

            But without warning, the building wasn’t there. The sky was being covered by a ceiling of grey stone bricks, grey stone walls forming all around the Corrupture with torches squeezing themselves out of the walls. A hunting trophy of a lion with a white spiral horn sticking out from its forehead formed on the wall and long purple rugs crawled out of the floor under the surprised monsters’ feet.

            “Welcome, brave adventurers!” called out a booming voice that seemed to come from all sides. “The castle of the imperial wizard hides great rewards behind great challenges! Will your party be the one to succeed against such terrible odds?”

            Amal ignored the challenge, instead looking down the hallways opening by themselves out of the walls. Some of their enemies had the power to create and control Game Areas themselves now; it looked like they were using that to defend themselves.

            There would be no running away from this fight, though. If his followers were killed 100 times, they’d come back to fight again 101 times. Still, it might be best to get the help of something with a bit more intelligence than the Cells…

            Bolt of electricity jumped from the Dual Gashat in the back of his neck to other games plugged into his armored body. Blobby shapes made of light oozed out of the cartridges and formed into a gang of terrors.

            One had a large round head and a tiny silver face of a horned oni, with monsters carved into the shoulder of his armor and a pair of black swords attached to his back. Kaiden.

            Next was a monster with a flat metal head and gold armor splashed here and there with blue, and exhaust pipes curling out of his back. He was already sitting on the back of a black motorcycle. Motors.

            Then a robot covered in heavy red armor plating, with a hammer in place of one hand and a heavy crushing claw in the other. He swept his head with its triangular brow around scanning for threats. Gatton.

            Last was a grey-armored robot with a cannon in place of his right hand, but with an even bigger cannon sticking out the miniature tank that his body head instead of legs. RevolTank.

            Chattering loudly in an inhuman language, the Amal Corrupture waved his hands and his new minions spread out. Motors revved his bike and zoomed down a hallway. “Yeeeeeaaaaah! I’ll run down anything that gets in my way!” he screeched as he disappeared down it.

            “I will gladly challenge the fools in this castle!” Kaiden declared and drew one of his swords from off his back.

            “Acquiring targets!” RevolTank said. He ripped up the exquisite rugs with the treads of his tank as he rolled away.

            “Gachan,” was also Gatton said as he followed behind Amal, the undead Cells mindlessly following their more advanced allies.

            Amal walked down the hall, seeming totally unconcerned with all the traps that might be waiting for him even with one of his enemies controlling everything that happened in the castle. After he turned a corner and had gone halfway when suddenly the ceiling started to grind and drop down on top of him.

            He held his hands out in front of him and from around the corner ahead a purple Energy Item flew right into them. His body shimmered just before the ceiling came down and slammed into the floor.

            And from the other end of the crushing trap crawled the Amal Corrupture, flat but unharmed thanks to the Energy Item he’d called to him with the powers of his Dual Gashat. From the other side Gatton pounded away on the stone block until he’d smashed it to bits and climbed over the rubble to rejoin Amal.

            “It can’t be far,” Amal said to his ally in a high voice with a strange echoing twang as they went around another corner into a new hall.

            “Gachan,” was the only thing Gatton said as he nodded to his superior.

            As soon as he had they both stopped as they heard the sound of a weapon tightening to fire. Amal held up his hands together and three other Energy Items came flipping through the windows on the sides of the hall. Amal grabbed two. One had a violet ring showing a silhouette bouncing a beam off his chest and the other one with an orange ring showing a silhouette beckoning in challenge.

            In the next second crossbows lodged in the walls all opened fire. The shots actually bent in midair to aim themselves at Amal. Before they could hit him a transparent shield appeared and the speeding bolts shattered like twigs on it.

            After the trap stopped firing Amal summoned another Energy Item. This had a dark blue ring showing a silhouette pressing his fingers to his forehead in concentration. “Try to sneak up on us now, patients,” Amal said over his shoulder with a chuckle to Gatton.

            “Gachan,” was all Gatton said.

            They came to a T-junction and Amal stopped, a vision forming in his mind. Him walking down the left hallway, a trapdoor opening under him and Gatton and dumping them into a pit with four-foot-long spikes and skulls.

            He stepped back and fired an arrow from his yellow bow. It hit an invisible split in the floor, opening up the trap Amal had just seen.

            So they went right.

 

XXX

 

            From the outside, the blocky castle had finished forming as the last blocks of a tower fell into place around the Machina Vision building.

            On the ground, Jiangshi Cells were hopping across the drawbridge through the gate they’d torn down, or into the moat and hopping across the bottom.

            Doku Dasao sighed. Machina Vision’s defenses would’ve been tough even when they weren’t expecting a monster army to attack. Now it looked like he’d have a whole dungeon to get through if he wanted to save Kensei before anything had a chance to happen to him. And these custom-made dungeons that Machina Vision could whip out of nowhere now were a place his knowledge of RPGs weren’t any help.

            That didn’t mean there weren’t options, though.

            “Henshin,” Doku whispered and plugged Taddle Craft into his Gamer Septa.

            Once the hooded cloak dropped on top of his armor, Kamen Rider Rune got out a Chibi Gamer Gashat in each hand: Taddle Quest and Drago Knight Hunter Z. As soon as he hit the triggers two tiny figures charged across the street where he was hiding to the side of the castle.

The Brave Knight, nothing but a tiny round helmet with arms and legs, and Graphite-chan, a beak-faced dragon man, attacked the side of the castle. Brandishing his legendary sword the Brave Knight formed a sheet of ice on the wall, turning the surface brittle. Graphite-chan reared back his head and spewed a fireball that hit the ice and blew a hole through the wall.

Before the Game Area’s controller had a chance to notice and close the wall Rune dashed through the opening. The pair of Chibi Gamers hopped after him but weren’t quick enough. The bricks in the wall pushed together, shattering the holographic mascots.

Rune cringed for a second but ran off down the hallway. Turning the corner, he realized just how alone he suddenly felt, one Rider going into a dungeon all on his own.

 

XXX

 

Everything blacked out in front of Kensei’s eyes and stayed blurred even after his sight came back. How bad was he getting?

He was together enough to realize the wheelchair he was tied to had fallen over on its side and his forehead was brushing the cool marble floor. Ayatsu and the gigantic Tousen had gotten back up and were looking down in his direction.

“Secure him,” Ayatsu stated emotionlessly.

Tousen roughly grabbed one of the wheelchair’s handles and yanked it up. A gasp escaped from Kensei’s mouth and he tried to struggle against the straps on his arms. All his strength seemed to have left him, but Kensei was sure if he didn’t break out now he’d never get another chance.

There was a WHIZZ sound and something sharp scraped against both of his arms. Pain pulled Kensei’s senses into sharp focus, and then he saw it.

Standing on the ground barely coming up to his knees, was a super-deformed figure of a ninja in a dark purple uniform, wearing a red scarf around his face and with a huge head of white anime hair. He had a cute little chain held in each hand ending in gleaming metal scythes, their blades dug into the straps under Kensei’s arms.

Then Ninja-chan yanked on his chains and cut through the straps on Kensei’s arms with tiny scythes on the ends. Right away Kensei stumbled out of the wheelchair and jumped over his tiny savior’s head.

            Without a word from his boss Tousen swatted the wheelchair out of the way and grabbed for Kensei’s shoulder. Before he got the chance a tiny dolphin slipped through the air and got in his way. Not just an ordinary tiny dolphin, but one smiling and wearing sunglasses, and leaving a trail of bubbles behind him, musical notes floating inside. Even in his exhausted state of mind, Kensei recognized the dolphin, and he swiped his arm through the trail of bubbles then covered his ears as fast as he could.

            A blast of music ripped through the room and knocked Ayatsu and Tousen off-balance. Already Kensei was stumbling away through a door that Ninja-chan was pointing out to him. The dolphin swam next to Kensei’s shoulder, flashed a smile at him and stopped by the code-lock in the door. With his tailfin the dolphin danced on a series of numbers until the door opened.

            It slammed shut again right in front of Tousen, the lock closing with the most satisfying CLUNK Kensei had ever heard in his life.

            With at least a second of safety Kensei took a breath to steady himself and quickly studied his rescuers. They were obviously Chibi Gamers like the ones he was used to from GENM’s older games. He didn’t recognize the tiny ninja, but the Dolphin. “Iruka-kun…from Aqua Beat!” Kensei smiled. The dolphin raised his sunglasses with a fin and winked one big cartoon eye.

            But Ninja-chan grunted and waved his hand impatiently for them to follow him. Kensei followed the two tiny sprites up stairs, across hallways and down stairs over and over, hiding from Auto Players patrolling the halls and having to rest several times. The poison…it was getting worse and worse. How long would Kensei be any good as a Kamen Rider?

            While he was slumped against the wall trying to get his eyes to focus again, Kensei heard the gentle beep of an electronic door lock opening right behind him. The door slid into the wall and he fell suddenly onto his back.

            He managed to scramble around and get up again, then stopped right where he was when he saw what was inside what looked like a showroom. Sitting out on a table were a Gamer Driver and a row of Rider Gashats. His. En En Chambara, Mighty Sketch, River Harmony. They all had the same scuffs as his, and the corner of the River Harmony label was starting to peel back a little just like his. There were even the Chibi Gamer Gashats for Mighty Action X and DoReMiFa Beat he’d been carrying when he got captured.

And of course, the bright gold Monk of Temple cartridge.

            As he picked all of his stuff up, Kensei imagined he knew what it felt like to walk away from a plane crash unharmed.

            With everything recovered Kensei turned back to the door and was thinking of how he’d find a way out. Before he’d taken two steps Iruka-kun stopped in front of him and waved a his fin back and forth like a disapproving finger. “What?” Kensei asked, and Iruka-kun pointed with the tip of his flipper over Kensei’s shoulder. Figuring in a strange way that he owed the sprites after coming to save him, Kensei looked.

            Behind him Ninja-chan had gotten down a silver briefcase, with more Rider Gashats sitting in the foam padding inside that he’d never seen before.

            But one he had.

            The case was bright blue with a yellow knob on the front. On the label was a smiling hula dancer, under bold yellow letters that seemed dare people to play it: AQUA BEAT!

            “Whoever sent these two, if you’re listening, _thanks_ ,” Kensei breathed as he caught himself on the edge of a counter so he didn’t fall over. He closed the case and took it with him as he went back into the hall to find a way out.

 

XXX

 

            On the monitor the ceiling came down and crushed the Motors monster. Ayatsu Shuugouteki drummed his fingertips against each other. Another one down, but the monsters were getting awfully close to the end of the dungeon. If they got to that, they would get to Machina Vision headquarters itself.

            “Sir, have them put my Gashat back together and _I’ll_ deal with this,” Suihei said from behind him. The young man’s voice was quiet, but there was a determined edge to it his father didn’t remember hearing before.

            “Out of the question,” Ayatsu immediately replied, though.

            “But sir—” Suihei protested before his father held up his hand to cut Suihei off.

            Slowly Ayatsu said, “Not in the shape you’re in after your fight with Utsura. Get down to the shelter to wait this out. Senjou’s in charge of defending us with Taddle Dungeon,” the CEO said as he spotted a figure in black and purple armor in the hallways of the building above. Suihei gasped in shock as he recognized Kamen Rider Zero.

            “You’re just going to let that maniac run around the building?!” Suihei exclaimed, forgetting the formality he usually used to address his father.

            “Of course not,” Ayatsu answered calmly. “We’re not undefended, are we, Tousen?” he asked his bodyguard with a knowing smile.

            The bald giant nodded, holding up a visor just like the one Suihei used to henshin…

 

XXX

           

            Should’ve been expecting it, really.

            The emergency exit Kensei found opened out onto a castle courtyard with stone paths between small rectangular laws, and a huge furry cyclops wielding a huge club. He slammed the door and slid down the wall, sighing in exhaustion.

            This night just wouldn’t end. If he stayed in the building, sooner or later he’d be caught, and then they’d have him lobotomized like that poor tech. But with the way he was sweating and could barely lift the briefcase he found, Kensei knew he’d be helpless if he was attacked.

            And the sound of a gun cocking a few inches away from his head told him that was exactly what was happening.

            Slowly he looked up and saw Kamen Rider Zero standing over him, golden pistol aimed right between his eyes. “Hand over those games you took,” Zero demanded in his distorted voice.

            It took a minute, but Kensei looked right into the eyes of Zero’s mask and said one word to him.

            “No.”

            He didn’t care if there was a cyclops on the other side of his only escape route. He didn’t care that Zero had a gun so close to his head Kensei could almost smell the metal.

            Zero didn’t budge an inch. It almost looked like he was just a statue. But again his voice came out, if anything even rougher than before. “I’m going to give you another chance to do what I said.”

            “Are you even Kuroto Dan?” Kensei demanded.

            Zero didn’t move. Didn’t say anything.

            “Because from what I heard he wouldn’t give me fair warning before he did something. He’d make some big overblown speech and try to beat everyone up,” Kensei went on, almost feeling his energy coming back from the defiance of literally talking back to someone with a gun to his head. “Somebody really wanted me to have these, and whoever that is, they’re obviously enemies of Machina Vision. So I’m not just giving these away, especially not to somebody who threatens to kill people. Hell, with the way you’re attacking Machina Vision I’d expect you to want their enemies to get stronger with new stuff.”

            Zero still hadn’t moved in all the time Kensei had talked. Abruptly he replied, “Those games were stolen by Machina Vision. I’m getting them back.”

            “What? Who are they stolen from, then?”

            “Just give them to me,” Zero insisted, pressing the barrel of his pistol closer to Kensei’s forehead. Then Kensei noticed something.

            Zero’s fingers were wrapped around the butt of his gun. His finger wasn’t even on the trigger.

            Kensei pushed the weapon away from him with an angry sigh. “Cut it out already.”

            Suddenly Zero turned and fired a loud shot. Kensei sighed again in aggravation, figuring it was just a warning shot. Then he saw they weren’t alone: Tousen was facing the two of them down from the direction Zero had fired, seeming to be trying to drown them in his huge shadow. He slid a VR visor onto his bald head and got out a Dual Gashat with a dark yellow case and a knob on the front.

            “ **Shikiretsu Rumble! Ass-beating, Level Fif-TEEEEEEH!** ” the Gashat exclaimed as Tousen twisted the knob and pushed it into his visor. A ring of Character Select icons appeared and Tousen uppercutted one. “ **Enter the streets of RAGE!! Kick, punch, it’s all in the mind! You’re in our turf now! It’s a fight to SURVIVE!!!** ”

            A suit of Rider armor formed out over Tousen’s body from his visor. Huge, angry red eyes appeared behind his mask’s goggles, under a white headband with “Blood Gang” written across it. A black undersuit formed across his body, yellow designs in the shape of clenched fists linking running up his legs and arms. The next thing to form was a red chestplate and pauldrons, with an oblong screen across the chest, showing the same “Blood Gang” kanji as on his headband. Around his forearms were wrapped strands of silvery athletic tape. The greaves on his legs and trim on his suit’s running shoes was a dull gold in color.

            He summoned a ring of icons around him again and hit one that showed a short yellow grip with a round pad on each end, a red A button embedded in one and a pink B button in the other pad. On top of the window was written “Gashacon Pummeler.” As the Pummeler appeared a length of shiny silver chain clinked out of the end in front of him.

            “ **Kamen Rider Buster! He’s gona BUST! YOU!! UP!!!** ” screamed his Gashat, completing the transformation.

            And then with a loud grunt Kamen Rider Buster charged at the two of the, swinging his chain over his head in a huge arc.

            It came down at Zero, obviously who Buster considered the bigger threat. The dark Rider somersaulted across the floor out of the way and Buster’s chain chopped into the wall where he’d been instead. Zero’s gun blazed but the pair of bullets hit Buster’s thick armor and ricocheted off, lodging in the walls instead.

            Buster’s chain whipped out again and hit Zero’s gun. The weapon fell apart from the powerful strike. The black Rider grabbed what had been the barrel off the floor, twisted an invisible mechanism on the bottom and a needle-like blade popped from the top end. He tossed it with all his might to have it embed itself in Buster’s shoulder.

            Machina Vision’s Rider only reached up slowly with his other hand and yanked the knife out. Buster tightened his hand around the weapon and a cloud of gold dust burst out of the ends of his grip.

            Then he whipped out his chain again and this time it caught Zero in the side and knocked him into the wall. The dark Rider gave a distorted scream of pain as the weapon hit him and he bounced off the wall but recovered fast and came at Buster swinging his fists. Buster grabbed his arms and they struggled until Buster planted his feet and tackled Zero right through the wall.

            Kensei peeked through the hole in the wall, his fingers trembling from exhaustion. Outside was the game courtyard he’d seen before, and Kamen Rider Buster was pummeling Zero over and over with his heavy chain. Buster yelled loud and whipped Zero one more time, knocking the dark Rider flying.

            Zero jumped back from the beating. “Try that again,” he challenged.

            Buster did. He lashed his shiny chain at Zero again but time seemed to move in slow motion as Zero dodged out of the way, darted in and jabbed with all the fingers on his left hand at Buster’s neck.

            Buster was knocked back into a wall. But after a minute he stood back up and started swinging his chain in front of him again. He was still rubbing his neck from where Zero’s attack hit him, though.

            Again time slowed down, with everything moving in a blur as Zero ducked under a massive swing from Buster’s chain that tore huge chunks out of the ground near her.

            Then without warning, the wall from the castle on the other side of the courtyard exploded out. An army of buzzing Corrupture undead stormed out, the Amal Corrupture walking right through them. Recognizing a definite enemy, the furry cyclops lifted his club to bring it back down on Amal’s head.

He never got the chance. Amal blocked the club with his big metal fish, then jumped and punched the cyclops once in the head with a flashing HIT graphic. The one-eyed monster went down and blinked a few times before disappearing completely. With that annoyance out of the way, Amal stared down the courtyard at the two Kamen Riders.

 

XXX

 

            A fireball exploded, leaving only a scorch mark covering the walls, floor and ceiling where the Corrupture Cell had been.

            Kamen Rider Rune rolled the dial on his staff and sent a miniature tornado spinning down the hall where it covered two more Jiangshi Cells and slammed into a wall. They exploded into purple particles and floated away, probably to reform somewhere closer to the rest of their army. And probably let them know where Rune himself was.

            Fear over that problem was drowned out by the satisfaction Rune was feeling at fighting off the Cells himself, though. There was something visceral about doing his own fighting he’d been forgetting, having monsters attack his enemies for him.

            He tried to pick out what seemed the most likely way to get to the end of the dungeon based on what he remembered from other RPGs, when Rune saw something that stopped him where he stood.

            A tiny ball of pink light, with tiny white butterfly wings. “Mishiranu! And…Karino-san!” Rune said before he remembered his other new ally’s name.

            “Dasao-san!” Poppy’s voice exclaimed then sighed. “Thank goodness you’re here too after all…we weren’t sure if that was really you with how they’re controlling what happens in here.”

            “Well if you knew where I was, you must know where Hidenaga is,” Rune replied. “Take me back there, he must be in trouble.”

            Immediately Navi turned around and flew down the halls leading Rune behind her.

            “I hope we’re in time,” Rune whispered.

            “Hidenaga-san hopes that too, I bet,” Poppy whispered too.

 

XXX

 

            His knife flying so fast it was only a blur, Zero easily mowed down attacking Corrupture. The purple clouds they were reduced to under his furious attack floated to the back of the unending mob.

            Meanwhile Kamen Rider Buster’s chain and fists whipped around with such power they easily destroyed any of the Cells that got too close. But they weren’t his real target. Again a black sword flashed out and deflected Buster’s Pummeler chain with a blast of sparks. Having defended himself from the attack, Kaiden the demonic samurai stabbed both of his blades at Buster’s heart. “A lowly ruffian like you is not worthy of my blade, but my lord commands it!” the monster declared.

            Both blades connected with Buster’s armor, the ends chipping into the screen taking up most of the middle. Even though Kamen Rider Buster was working for Machina Vision, Kensei bit down on the back of his hand to silence a scream of horror.

            But Buster’s empty fist flashed out and connected with Kaiden’s head. The power of the blow was so great it knocked the samurai monster flying, pulling his swords out of Buster’s armor in the process. Kaiden landed on top of a bunch of Jiangshi and knocked them all down, the ones on the bottom popping into purple clouds.

            “Target acquired. Gachan,” whirred a metallic voice from behind Buster. Kensei recognized the red metal monster: it had to be Gatton, that one boss from the game Gekitotsu Robots. He hit Buster across the back of his head with his huge metal claw, the silent Rider’s head jerking violently to the side.

            Then Kamen Rider Buster immediately turned around delivered a punch to the side of Gatton’s own triangular metal head, leaving a massive dent. Gatton fell down on his back with an echoing CLANG. By then Kaiden had gotten back up, and Gatton quickly got to his feet too, both monsters closing in on Buster from ahead and behind.

            The Rider silently reached up to his visor and pressed a button the side. “ **Shikiretsu Critical BEATDOWN!!!** ”

            He spun his chain faster and faster until it was going so fast the links were glowing with orange energy. Then he lashed out, the power built up in the weapon extending it out until the end reached far enough to touch the courtyard’s walls, as Kensei noticed when it whipped past and almost hit his head before he ducked back behind the wall.

            Buster’s chain burned a line across Kaiden’s chest and then Gatton’s neck as the robot got back up. Both contorted in pain then seemed to freeze in place. Buster grabbed his extended chain right in the middle, not seeming to notice the searing energy throbbing on the metal clutched in his hand. He lashed the shorter length down through Kaiden’s front then turned around and hit Gatton on a downward slant, covering both with colorful HIT graphics. Both enemies were consumed by explosions.

            Like with all the undead Cells, the two monsters’ remains floated away as crackling clouds of some weird matter. These two flowed back to where the Amal was watching, each into a Gashat socketed into the creature’s body. The Corrupture stared down Buster, who walked slowly closer, whirling his shiny chain.

           

XXX

 

            Across the courtyard a huge BOOM split the air. RevolTank’s shell from the cannon on his waist ripped out just before Zero ducked under it. The shell exploded against the wall of the courtyard, tearing a whole in it that reached halfway up the wall.

            The dark Rider seemed unafraid by his opponent’s awesome firepower, even as the mechanism inside RevolTank’s body whirred and clanked, loading another shell.

            “The general’s orders are to destroy all Riders!” thundered the robot tank.

            “Then just do it,” Zero answered. RevolTank’s cannon arced around to face Zero to give him his wish, when suddenly Zero ran off to his side. RevolTank fired, but Zero jumped high and instead the shell vaporized a swarm of Jiangshi that were just about to get to the end of the courtyard.

            As Zero came down he poised himself for a landing on the end of RevolTank’s cannon. “ **Cold Critical Point!** ” cried Zero’s equipment. He landed on the end of the barrel and dashed up to the robot, landing a kick with shoes sizzling from the heat of RevolTank’s cannon. The robot’s head jerked back and let Zero stab his knife into the unarmored neck joint.

A giant HIT symbol jumped from the impact, while Zero himself back-flipped over to the end of RevolTank’s barrel and somersaulted until he hit the ground in a crouch. He didn’t even look back at the explosion marking RevolTank’s demise.

            Kensei swallowed as he watched this display from his hiding place behind the wall. Was Zero a ruthless killer after all?

            “You think that’s all it takes to win?” asked a high voice with a strange buzz to it. Buster and Zero turned to look where it had come from, to where the Amal Corrupture was standing. Buster walked closer, whirling his weapon. Amal stared at the Rider, then reached to the back of his neck and twisted the knob on the Dual Gashat there.

            “ **Perfect Knock-Out!** ” called the familiar voice of the games being activated. Amal threw his arms as the full power of the game filled his body. As one, the Corrupture Cells stopped hopping around the courtyard, faced Amal with their arms held out in front of them, then burbled loudly in excitement as their leader started to change.

            The glowing outlines of eyes inside Amal’s dome-face got even bigger, dark pupils forming in them. One eye turned red, the other turned blue. The black spaces between his patchy armor plating filled with a dark blue color, etched with jigsaw lines. A diagonal design of red flames formed between his plates of armor next, then a huge golden disc appeared to cover his back. Thick armor appeared covered Amal’s shoulders, red on one side, blue on the other to match his new evil eyes.

Zero took one look at what was happening then suddenly turned invisible.

            “The great leader says,” Amal said, his voice reverberating off the walls, “the antibodies die!” He pointed with his heavy robot fist at the fractured wall where Kensei was hiding and watching the fight. All of the Cells hopped forward making loud bubbling noises that sounded almost like cheering. Buster turned to attack them and protect Machina Vision headquarters, but the Amal Corrupture launched himself the Rider. Amal’s robotic fist caught him right in the middle of the back and knocked Buster down.

            Buster jumped right back up and threw a heavy chop at Amal, who turned and raised his mechanical and blocked the attack without even flinching. The crack in Amal’s face twisted into a sarcastic grin before he hit his enemy with a blindingly fast slash from the feline claws on his other hand.

 

XXX

 

            With the fight starting again Kensei staggered, leaning hard on the wall as he tried to run, to find another way out before the Corrupture caught up to him. His vision had turned into a hideous pool of blurred colors, and his stomach felt like a volcano was bubbling inside it. Everything went black and Kensei slumped over, hitting the floor.

            A few seconds later his eyes flickered open again. Kensei tried to push himself off the ground but couldn’t get his arms to move at all. It seemed like the only sense still working was his hearing, because the bubbling noise from the hopping Cells was getting louder.

            Was this it? Kensei’s stomach clenched in fear and he felt like he was about to throw up. He tried to fight the feeling down but he had no energy left in his body anymore. The damned itching feeling from his poisoned arm came back, worse than ever and all the way up to his shoulder.

            This really was it for him, wasn’t it?

            He wanted to get up. To fight, to stand tall in his armor as Kamen Rider Utsura again.

            But no matter how hard he tried to will himself to get up, it was no good. He couldn’t move at all, and a second later he couldn’t even see, everything turning totally black.

            It wasn’t fair, he thought. Kensei always knew he might get killed if he started fighting powerful monsters…how could he possibly forget? But to go out instead like this, weak and sick instead of in a fight with a dangerous enemy, it just seemed _wrong_.

            He had the strangest thought then. Wasn’t a situation like this, when it seemed like the hero had no hope of surviving, when some kind of miraculous rescue would happen?  
            “Hidenaga??”

            Some long-lost friend to make their return and save him, so they could team up to save the day after all?

            “Hidenaga!!”

            To reveal the secret of the one thing that could save the world from their worst enemy, and start on the last quest of the game?

            “What are those things?!”

            Wasn’t that Kamen Rider Rune’s voice? Was Kensei actually right about what happened next?

            Suddenly Kensei felt a rush of energy, pushing the numbness out of hiis body. His vision even started coming back, enough for him to see a figure in green and black armor, wearing a purple cloak over it. And standing over Kensei’s head were a pair of tiny shapes, one he could vaguely make out as a blue dolphin, and a tiny man in purple clothes and with a huge head of white hair.

             “Don’t you dare hurt them,” Kensei groaned. “They’re on our side.”

            “I _told_ you,” Kiiko’s voice said quietly. “The dolphin’s from Aqua Beat!”

            “…I don’t really play rhythm games,” Rune replied.

            “Then you’re not a real gamer,” Kiiko stated matter-of-factly. Poppy’s voice chuckled.

            Kensei felt his arm being draped over Rune’s shoulders and he was hoisted off the floor. “I guess they are on our side, they gave you a healing item,” he admitted. “You okay?”

            “Not really,” Kensei admitted. “I can barely see, but yeah, looks like we have a mysterious friend. Those Chibi Gamers down there made sure I got _this_ , too,” he said and limply waved the case full of games they’d given him.

            “Great, but we gotta get out of here _now_ ,” Rune warned. “Sounds like those Cells are almost here!”

            Kensei dropped the case and got out his Gamer Driver.

            “Are you crazy, Hidenaga?!” Rune demanded. “You’re in no shape to henshin!”

            “There’s nobody else,” Kensei retorted and awkwardly managed to lock the Gamer Driver in place. He got out the bright gold case for Monk of Temple. “There’s a hell of a fight going on back behind all those Cells, and you’re the only Rider around here I can trust to take care of that while I deal with the undead. The people who run this company are asses, but most of the people doing the actual work probably aren’t.”

            Rune grabbed for the gold cartridge. “I’ll do it,” he said.

            Kensei held it away from him. “You can’t. You just said you don’t play games like this.” He loaded it into his belt. “Besides, my eyes are getting better already. I’ll be fine keeping those zombies busy for you.”

            Rune held up his hand. “How many fingers?”

            “Four.”

            “Three,” Rune said, but unhooked Kensei’s arm from his shoulders to give him a chance to stand on his own. “But I guess that’s probably good enough.”

            Kensei smiled back at Rune.

            “Henshin!”

            Rune got out his most powerful Gashat then and got ready to switch to it too, but the dolphin swam up and bumped into his arm. He looked over, and the tiny ninja-man was holding up another Energy Item. The ring around the edge was gold, and it showed a circle of six silhouettes with arrows pointing from each in toward the middle.

            Behind his mask Rune’s eyes went wide as he realized what it was.

 

XXX

 

            A whole river of burbling undead Corrupture Cells had broken through the back wall of the castle and surged into the halls of the building itself. Whenever they got to a junction they’d split up and hop down every direction. At the rate they were flooding in soon they might cover the entire building.

            Then came the sound.

            A low musical note sounding like hollow wood.

            Right away everything seemed to stop. The Jiangshi Corrupture landed from the last jump, then froze. A ringing echoed down the halls from a beads clattering together. Then all at the same time the Cells made a panicked bubbling sound and sank into complete chaos. They clawed at the walls, banged into locked doors and ran into each other trying to escape the power behind that sound.

            “Damn it,” Utsura whispered as he hit his gong just a second after the signal for it passed by the target on his HUD. “Guess I’m a little out of it after all.” He walked slowly down the hall, but the Jiangshi were desperate to stay out of his way as the sounds of his instruments echoed down the halls of the building. With the weakened Cells collapsing around them Rune hurried past them to the courtyard.

            The fighting had gotten even uglier. Kamen Rider Buster was grappling with Amal. Suddenly Amal’s blue eye closed in a wink and a red Energy Item showing a silhouette flexing his bicep whipped out of windows on opposite sides of the courtyard and absorbed them into his body. A rush of power covered Amal’s body and he pushed harder. Buster was sinking onto his knees as the monster pressed him down with even greater strength.

Buster lunged forward and headbutted Amal but the monster didn’t even budge. Instead Amal let go of Buster’s hands, grabbed the heavy Rider by the shoulders and tossed him into the air before jump-kicking Buster across the courtyard.

            Buster had just hit the ground when he was up again and stomping across the yard to attack Amal. The Corrupture wound up his arm so fast the big metal fist on the end caught fire, then shot it off like a missile right at Buster. The Rider caught it and held on as he was pushed along the ground for a minute until all the momentum was gone. Buster threw down the huge projectile, his fingers quivering and smoking from the force.

            Before he had a chance to attack again Amal jumped over the Rider’s head, hooked clawed hands under Buster’s shoulders and then flipped him over Amal’s head to slam him into the ground. The impact shook everything so hard stones fell off the tops of the walls and into the courtyard.

Rune loaded his other Gashat, and braced himself for a fight. He’d placed where he’d seen that new pattern on the Amal’s armor, and he didn’t take long to decide the real fight was there, instead of with all the Corrupture Cells.

            “Henshin!”

            The others didn’t look up as Rune changed forms, even when his platform appeared and he literally hovered above them. It didn’t matter, Rune would’ve rather had the time to put his plan into action. His hands trembled just a bit from excitement as he drew two cards.

            “Arise, Mind Cracker! Arise, Grandmaster!” Rune declared. The Mind Cracker, a tiny dragon with a big drill mounted on his back, and the Grandmaster, a bearded robot with long insect-like legs formed on the ground.

            Rune held up the gold Energy Item he’d just gotten and as he did it turned into a ball of light. The two fighters below stopped and looked up to see the light dimming as it formed into another card. “I play the card Industrial Evolution, and fuse all of my monsters into one!”

            Color faded from the two monsters until they were just wireframe skeletons, then they split apart into the other monsters they’d been combined from. Suicide doll, the devilish grinning wind-up toy. The Rumble Coffin with a faceless horror waiting inside. Loremaster, the floating robotic scholar. Sage Drake, the dragon who harnessed the power of the mind instead of savage fury. Wall Cracker, a mobile drill that could break into any fortress. And the Glyph Chaser, the guardian hieroglyph that could catch any grave robber.

            One by one their wireframe outlines flowed together. It was impossible to say what the shape was, it was painful just looking at it. Then there was a flash of light and a rumbling boom, a wave of power that ripped chunks of rock out of the walls and nearly knocked Buster down until he crouched and dug in his feet. The wall behind Rune that had taken so much abuse from the earlier fight caved in completely. Only the Amal Corrupture managed to stay standing in the face of all that power.

            Then the light was gone. In the middle of the courtyard was a throne made of what had once been brightly-polished metal but was now covered in puke-green tarnish. It didn’t sit on the ground, instead it was held up by a foot-tall metal sphere at each corner. Sitting wasn’t exactly the word to describe the throne’s occupant, either. It was the torso, arms and head of a person, wearing a crown of metal laurel leaves, but with robotic joints and covered in the same thick coat of green grime as the throne was. On a row of small spikes on the top of the throne were holographic images of the six months who’d come together to create him.

            A hum of power came from the bizarre construct, and the air around it literally distorted into blobs of color but the throne itself stayed in sharp focus. “Emperor Gelledan XIV, reawakened in an immortal metal form!” Rune declared with pride, chuckling menacingly.

            “That stupid ugly thing?!” Amal taunted in his high echoey voice. Hearing him actually say anything still sounded weirder than his voice. “There’s only one ruler! _OUR_ ruler!”

            “Then my emperor here challenges you to battle to prove your superiority!” Rune yelled. He pointed straight ahead and Emperor Gelledan raised a green scepter with a cracked gem on the top.

            “I will throw down all pretenders!” creaked the ancient voice of the emperor.

            Kamen Rider Buster took a step back, silently waiting to see who made the first move. It was Amal, who winked his blue eye again and brought an Energy Item floating out of the windows again. He backhanded the Energy Item, one with a tan ring and showing a silhouette getting smaller, over at the emperor.

            Emperor Gelledan did nothing to defend himself. Shining threateningly the Shrink item got closer and closer, and Rune stroked his hands together while he chuckled smugly. Then the item crossed into the distorted area around the emperor who pointed his scepter at it. The item suddenly stopped, spun in place for a few tense seconds then went shooting right back at Amal twice as fast as it had come.

Amal’s mouth opened in silent horror before one of the other items he’d summoned, a bright yellow one, drifted into his body and he ran away at super-speed before the returned item hit the ground hard enough to explode.

            A display like that seemed to be all Kamen Rider Buster needed to decided who to attack. When Amal came zooming by he suddenly jumped and tackled the monster. Buster pinned the Corrupture with one knee then linked both of his fists over his head and brought them down like a hammer on Amal’s forehead. A thin crack shaped like a lightning bolt formed from where he hit.

            “Crush him!” commanded the emperor, waving his battered scepter over his head. “Crush all who challenge the empire’s power!” Buster seemed perfectly happy to obey as he smashed his linked fists down on Amal’s chest. The armor there cracked and a few blue jigsaw pieces popped out from the powerful attack.

            Amal made a fist of his own and punched Buster on the side of his head so hard the fist was covered in fire, knocking the Rider off him. The Corrupture turned to his other opponent, the mechanical emperor, staring him down with those burning, mismatched eyes under Amal’s dome. Suddenly he charged, and the emperor laughed a creaking laugh and charged straight at the Corrupture too, rolling on the orbs at the corners of his throne. Just before they were about to crash into each other Emperor Gelledan lifted his scepter then brought it down with a regal flourish.

            And without warning Amal’s charge stopped as a great invisible force pushed down on his shoulders. He was forced to his knees and looked up at the emperor in hatred.

            “Kneel! Kneel before the supreme! Kneel before Gelledan!” the robot ruler creaked.

            “We are a virus!” Amal growled while he struggled against his enemy’s power, getting a few inches higher. “We will evolve! We will cover everything!”  
            “ _NO YOU WON’T!_ ” Kamen Rider Rune screamed, his voice tinged with glee. “You can knock us down, but you can’t beat us! We’ll always get up again and fight back, no matter what you hit us with! _That’s what a Kamen Rider stands for!_ ”

            With an angry roar the Amal Corrupture stood back up, breaking the effects of the power that’d been holding him. Even for a second after that, though, Kamen Rider Buster was staring up at Rune from the speech he’d just made.

 

XXX

 

            Jiangshi were falling all over the remains of Machina Vision’s Auto Players while Utsura came down the stairs, hitting his gong in the slow rhythm his HUD showed him. And only missing a beat every once in a while despite his strained vision.

            It seemed weird for them to send most of their numbers down into the lower levels of the building. Then again, with what Kensei had learned about Machina Vision’s plans, he bet he knew what he’d find when he got down there.

            He was right. When the staircase stopped there was a vault door in the wall that had been torn off its hinges by Jiangshi lying in heaps all over the floor. They were helpless as long as Utsura kept up his rhythm, but he’d been keeping that up long he’d covered the while building in the effects of his powers.

            One undead reached out with a pathetically quivering arm and Utsura sighed. They’d have torn him to shreds before he’d gone down one floor, but Utsura couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for them, seeing them like this.

            “Least I can do is end this quickly.” The SPECIAL bar in HUD had filled up to a bright pink. He hit the button.

            “ **Temple Critical Purify!** ”

            Utsura hit his gong again, shook his prayer beads. Hit the gong again, shook the prayer beads again. Not harder or faster, but the sounds carried even farther than before until they seemed to pass right through the walls. The Jiangshi all around him writhed on the ground in weak protest.

            He hit the gong and made one last note that echoed out forever. Every Jiangshi he could see popped into a purple cloud and floated out of the building, up stairways and under doors.

            The Rider was right about what he’d see on the other side of the vault door. There was another vault door, still attached to the wall despite gouges torn into the frame around it showing a valiant attempt to break it open anyway.

            Standing there, still trying to hack open the door’s keypad with the knife in his hand, was Kamen Rider Zero. He’d sunk to his knees from exhaustion but still pulled on the opening lever like it might actually work for him.

            “There you are, Utsura,” he said over his shoulder. “Knew you’d be in here after I heard that little song of yours.”

            “Kamen Riders don’t do things halfway.”

            Zero laughed a dry, exhausted laugh. “You really do believe that. But even you aren’t getting in there.”

            “You’d try to stop me if I did, something tells me,” Utsura answered. “Because you want what’s in there all to yourself?”

            Zero stood up. “Would _you_ try to stop _me_ if you thought I could get in there?”

            “If you were planning to kill the people who run this company, yes, I would,” Utsura answered.

            He blinked and the next thing he knew Kamen Rider Zero was right in front of him, holding the knife to Utsura’s throat in a reverse grip. “You asked me to remind you never to get in a real fight with me. I’m doing that now. Get in my way and I’ll take you out. That’s a promise.”

            Maybe it was _because_ he was so worn out that Utsura didn’t have the energy to back down then. “Killing is never acceptable. No matter what your reason is.”

            “I came here to _save_ a life, not to take them,” Zero retorted. “And next time they won’t stop me.” Suddenly he faded from sight. Utsura just shook his head.

 

XXX

 

            The Corrupture monster hurled himself at Rune’s robot and landed a punch with both fists at the same time. A terrifying dent formed in the metal of Emperor Gelledan’s chest and his throne rolled backward, digging small ditches in the grass with the spheres on the throne spewing fountains of sparks in protest.

            Emperor Gelledan spun his scepter in his hand and another Energy Item flewe over the wall into his waiting hand. It had a pink ring and showed a silhouette stretching out his arm. Which the emperor then did himself, stretching out his arm and hitting Amal on the head with his scepter. The attack landed on the crack Buster made with his own attack and made it even bigger.

            Amal staggered away, punchy from that hit. Buster jumped over and pinned the monster’s wrists behind his back before he had a chance to recover. He held Amal there while the emperor’s arm stretched across the courtyard again and hit the cracked armor on the monster’s chest.

            Then Amal recovered enough to yank his arms free and turned around to punch Buster on the jaw, then go into a spinning kick that knocked the Rider several steps back. Amal aimed his yellow bow at Buster to finish the job.

            “Crush the enemies of the emperor! Crush them! CRUSH THEM!” Emperor Gelledan screamed, coming down from a high jumped aimed right at Amal’s head. The monster held up his hands and called another Energy Item to him: it had a turquoise ring and showed a transparent person’s silhouette against a city skyline. As soon as it dissolved into his hand Amal disappeared and the emperor crashed down on nothing but the grass of the courtyard.

            Kamen Rider Buster looked around, scanning the courtyard for any sign of their invisible enemy. A small rock fell over and almost automatically he threw himself in its direction, colliding with a humanoid shape that flickered into visibility for just a second but that second was all he needed to target a punch. His heavy fist cracked against something in the air, Amal’s chest from the flash of visibility he had for a second. A fireball erupted in the air suddenly and curved to slam itself into Buster’s chest, but the Rider only staggered back a single step before he threw a flurry of punches at the air. Suddenly another ball of fire formed behind him and exploded against Buster’s back.

            While the two of them fought the emperor was holding up his scepter scanning the walls of the castle for something. He stopped as the gem glowed a bright purple then yanked his scepter backward. From that direction another Energy Item came exploding out of the wall, a lavender one that showed a white silhouette giving off beams of light.

            That’s what Emperor Galledan started to do when the item disappeared in his hand. First a beam like a spotlight formed from the cracked gem on his scepter. Next from the eyes of his grimy green face, then out of his mouth. His fingertips. The holograms of the monsters he’d formed from on top of the throne. Even the spheres on the throne’s corners as it rolled around in circles, shining bright to every edge of the courtyard.

            A flood of light covered the area around where Buster was standing and the Amal Corrupture appeared, about to launch a sneak attack on Buster.

Kamen Rider Buster turned and punched Amal. There was no effect but he threw another punch that cracked the colorful armor plating on the monster’s chest, then jumped and smashed the heel of his boot into the cracked spot on Amal’s head. White light was shining through the broken areas.

            Desperately the Amal Corrupture held out his hand, calling something else to him. It was yet another Energy Item, with a dark green ring and showing a silhouetted form in front of a giant version of itself.

            “ _Oh no you don’t!_ ” Rune shouted as he recognized it: an item that would turn the user into a giant. In response Rune’s summoned emperor reached around to the back of the throne and got out an Energy Item he’d snatched: a light green disc, showing a black ball with eyes bouncing along.

            “No-one overshadows the ruler chosen by the supreme!” Emperor Gelledan’s voice creaked. A beam of light shot out of his scepter, took the shape of a human outline and ran with the emperor’s item to where Amal was holding out his hands for the growing item he’d called to him.

            The Chaser-beam from the scepter threw its own item. Seeming to sense what Rune had planned, Kamen Rider Buster ran and shoulder-checked the Amal Corrupture out of the way of the Energy Item he’d been trying to summon. He stumbled and the ball item hit him in the back and immediately dissolved.

            And Amal’s body inflated into a ball itself, his hands and feet flailing helplessly on the sides.

            Buster chuckled evilly and cracked his knuckles. He punched the Amal Corrupture who rolled across the lawn into the wall. When he bumped into it one of the stones popped out on a spring and bumped the monster off on an angle. Another spring suddenly popped out of the ground and bounced the inflated Amal into the air.

            Higher, higher the monster went until he only a multicolored speck in the sky. Buster jumped halfway up one castle wall and climbed it, digging handholds by jamming his fingers straight into the rock with his awesome strength.

            Rune could already guess the other Rider was setting up for an attack when the Corrupture came back down. He knew he needed to set up one of his own to make sure this fight finally ended, and an idea formed in his mind. Grinning wickedly behind his mask, he sent Emperor Gelledan into action…

            A second later the colored speck in the sky came down again. Kamen Rider Buster jumped off the roof of a tower and pushed a switch on the side of his visor. As his jump carried him over to where Amal was falling Buster launched into a flurry of punches with his fists leaving dents even in the rubbery body that kept Amal from fighting back.

            “So perish all pretenders to the throne!” Emperor Galledan yelled, a cloud of dust billowing out the mechanism of his mouth. He raised his scepter at the falling monster, levitating the growing Energy Item into the air with his ancient power. “Gather, my mighty loyal legions! Strike down the messenger of the false ruler!” the emperor said, then fired a blast of power from his battered scepter.

            Bands of energy spiraled out, taking different forms. A dragon. A drill. A man with a beard. A doll with rosy cheeks and knife-like teeth. The blast touched the growth Energy Item and tripled in size.

            At the same time Buster’s rapid-fire punches had dug a dent deep enough in Amal’s body that one last punch got through. A HIT graphic twice as tall as Buster exploded and the helpless Amal was knocked toward the ground, right into the emperor’s bloated energy blast. The faces of the emperor’s component monsters looking out from the storm of energy grinned just before they hit Amal.

            A huge explosion cloud billowed out to mark the monster’s final demise. Small explosions popped like fireworks out from it to cover the sky. Rune chuckled tiredly to himself as he saw it. The sight was bound to confuse people all over town wondering what the occasion was, but Rune didn’t care.

            “ **GAME CLEAR**!” yelled an announcer’s voice so loud it blew Rune’s fake hair spikes back, followed by the usual chirpy fanfare.

            Rune never felt like he’d deserved it as much as he did right then. He did it. He finally beat the Amal Corrupture. With help from a rival company’s Rider, but so what?

            At least it hadn’t been Corsair.

            Rune’s attention snapped into focus as he saw brightly glowing shapes falling away from the explosion in the sky. Of course.

            A loud grunt came from the ground. Rune looked down, and Kamen Rider Buster was pointing behind him and grunted again for emphasis. Rune didn’t have to guess what he meant, and there was something else important he had to do anyway.

            “Kamen Rider Buster,” Rune said, “I hope you believe me when I say it was a pleasure fighting alongside you.” Emperor Gelledan nodded silently in acknowledgement too, then rolled back into the shadows as the castle around them started to slowly peel away with the end of the battle.

            Machina Vision’s Rider just looked back up at without a word. He hadn’t said a thing the entire fight, Rune realized. With a quick salute Rune floated backwards as he and the emperor left Machina Vision behind.

           

XXX  

 

            “Now left. We’re almost there.”

            “Are you sure?” Kensei asked. His eyes were shut tight to conserve any bit of energy he could with how drained the night had been combined with the poison sapping his strength. “I’d be really surprised if there wasn’t some kind of trap waiting for us before we get out of there.”

            “It sounds like you take video games a little too seriously, then, Utsura-san,” said a voice Kensei would never forget after the night he’d been through. It could only be Ayatsu Shuugouteki.

            He stood all the way up and tried not to lean with all his weight against the wall. “Shuugouteki-san. I’m honored. I honestly did think you’d do anything to keep me from making it out of here with my brain in one piece.”

            “Not tonight. You and friend your friend actually played an important part in saving my operation.”

            “In saving the lives of the people in the building,” Kensei corrected him.  
            Ayatsu continued as if he hadn’t heard it. “You have nothing to prove you heard what you did, anyway.”

            “Maybe I don’t take them too seriously after all,” Kensei mumbled.

            “So I’m giving you five minutes to get off my property before I notice a corporate spy and call security on him,” Ayatsu continued. “And you know how serious my security is.”

            Kensei started down the hallway in the direction Navi had told him to go. “And _you_ know how serious we are about what _we_ do.”

            Ayatsu chuckled. “Touche.”

            Navi buzzed by Kensei’s ear. “Please, let’s just get out of this horrible place,” Kiiko’s voice whispered from the ball of light.

            “Yeah, I’ve done about all I’m good for tonight,” Kensei answered, still keeping his eyes shut and just focusing on moving his legs. “But I have a feeling we’ll be back.”

 

XXX

 

            Eventually Navi said she’d guided Kensei a safe distance out of the building and he dared to open his eyes again. He was relieved to be able to see a street, and to realize all the darkness was just from it being the middle of the night.        

            “We…actually made it through that,” he gasped, but smiled.

            “Of course we did,” Kiiko’s voice answered like there was never any doubt. Poppy chuckled. Kensei, despite everything, chuckled too. He looked up as his vision cleared enough for him to be sure he saw a glowing shape run past. Feeling invigorated by curiosity, Kensei jogged as fast as he could with all the strain on him from the day.

            There, floating over the sidewalk of the next street over was Kamen Rider Rune. Right in the middle of an empty intersection was a robot covered in green dirt, sitting on a metal throne. Six glowing outlines like Rune’s Glyph Chaser from before were running around the street, opening trash cans and looking inside windows.

            Windows on the third floor.

            “Hidenaga! There you are!” Rune waved. “Mind helping us look?”

            “Look for what?”

            Rune held something up: it was a Rider Gashat, Giri Giri Chambara. Kensei got out his scuffed red En En Chambara Gashat and gave Rune a questioning look, who looked back and laughed down at his ally.

            “Yeah, we beat Amal! We finally did!” Rune said, more than a little proudly. With how many of the old games that Corrupture had stolen before they had the chance, Kensei supposed Rune earned some pride.

            “It was a victory worthy of Gelledan the First himself,” the throne robot reported.

Rune waved him off. “All the games he took are around here somewhere…why don’t you have Mishiranu help you?”

            “That’s not a bad idea,” Kensei replied. “What do you say, ladies?”

            “Let’s race!” Kiiko suggested. “Let’s go, Kensei-kun!” Navi buzzed around the corner of a building. Kensei laughed and shook his head but he went after the ball of light. Navi flew straight to a dumpster where a red Gashat was lodged. Right then one of the outlines ran past with a blue on in its glowing hand. Soon there was a little pile Rider Gashats.

Giri Giri Chambara. Bakusou Bike. Gekitotsu Robots. Bang Bang Tank. Dangerous Zombie. Night of Safari.

            “Nice job, everybody!” Kensei congratulated.

            “Wait!” Kiiko said and Navi fluttered back and forth around Kensei’s head. “I feel another one…one that’s a lot stronger than these ones.”

            “Well, lead the way then!” Rune said.

            She did. Lodged in the roof of a car, its circuit panels sticking out through the bottom, was a dark blue Gashat with a yellow knob on the front. The label on one side said Perfect Puzzle, the other one Knock Out Fighter.

            “Never seen one like that before,” Rune said.

            “Buster had one,” Kensei whispered. “So it probably _is_ really powerful.” They started moving to where the Gashat landed, but before they could take it a cloud of color-shifting, cube-shaped particles exploded out of the ground next to the car.

            Inside it was the shadowy outline of a man, with shining yellow eyes.

            An angry buzzing sound came from the strange shape and all of them stepped back, expecting an attack. The buzzing slowed, forming words. “Can’t you let touch that one, heroes.”

            “What?” Kensei and Rune asked at the same time.

            “The other ones I suppose I can let you have,” the dark figure said. “Those’ll make the game _a lot_ more interesting. This one, this one’s a little too important for you to have that easily.” He reached out for the Dual Gashat.

            “Oh no you don’t!” Rune yelled.

            “Indeed he does not!” Emperor Gelledan yelled even louder, shriller and brandishing his scepter. “Those are the spoils of war!” His scepter flashed, and Rune pointed for him to attack. Light rushed from the images on the back of his throne, gathered on the scepter’s jewel and fired off just like when they’d finished off the Amal Corrupture before.

            The dark outline just waved his hand and swatted the incoming attack out of existence with the faintest touch. Then he leaned over and grabbed the Gashat, pointing at Rune’s monster with his other hand. The emperor glowed red and then just exploded into shiny cubes.

            “Ah-ah-ah!” the mysterious figure said, shaking his finger in a scolding way. “You’re going off-script here! The villain has to show up and let the heroes know even though they just won a big battle, they still have to stay on their toes!” He said, smiling with a mouthful of yellow teeth the same color as his eyes.

            As soon as he said that he faded into the darkness. The tiny blocks swirling around him scattered on the ground and seemed to melt out of sight. His mocking eyes and smile took a bit longer to fade.

            “Hidenaga,” Rune said quietly. “I think we need to send those other Gashats back where they belong right now before the crazy guy changes his mind and comes back.”

            “I’m right there with you,” Kensei said and triggered the first game his hand touched.

            Navi split back into Poppy and Kiiko and they started grabbing and triggering Gashats too, all of the games flying away into the sky, into the portal where they always went and where the Corrupture monsters always came from.

            This time, though.

            This time, it wasn’t the same as usual.

            The portal, the rupture, seemed to grow bigger instead of fading out of sight.

            Light flashed from inside and illuminated four human silhouettes on the inside.

            They were moving their arms up and down, like they were trying to push through something.

            Two had on long coats. One had a long scarf on instead.

            “Guys, is that—” Rune started to say, not quite daring to believe it.

            “I sure hope so,” Kensei answered.


	26. Struggle and Payoff

            An earthquake.

            Everything was shaking. That meant there was an earthquake, didn’t it?

            “Kensei-kun?”

            That sounded like the voice of somebody he knew. Wasn’t this something that’d happened to him recently, he tried to remember? He’d been in trouble, sort of like being in an earthquake, but a friend had come and saved him.

            “Kensei-kun!”

            More than one friend, he realized as his mind started focusing. One he didn’t even know, who sent little game characters to help him. That sounded like something out of a video game, didn’t it? Meeting a new friend when they saved you from certain doom?

            “KENSEI-KUN!”

            It came so suddenly his eyes flicked open and he sat up straight in his chair. There wasn’t an earthquake, he was just in his classroom at school. Nothing was happening, in fact no-one was there. Just Kiiko, who was in the middle of trying to shake him awake.

            “What happened?” he asked breathlessly.

            “Nothing happened. You fell asleep in class.”

            He sat back and panted for a second. Sweat trickled down into one eye. “You didn’t wake me up or anything?”

            Kiiko gave him a strange look. “And embarrass you in front of class?”

            “ _That’s_ what you were worried about?”

            “Well, and you were up all night fighting at Machina Vision…and…,” she replied and stopped herself.

            He sighed. “And what?”

            “…and you’re getting really sick,” she admitted.

            “Yeah, I guess I am,” Kensei said as he wiped away the sweat with the back of his infected arm. He was surprised by how heavy his arm felt. Another thought suddenly grabbed his attention, though. “Wait, since when are you worried about something happening to me?”

            She gave him a blank stare for a minute, then suddenly turned and started walking fast for the classroom door. “ _Kiiko_ ,” Kensei said sharply, and she stopped. “Please tell me what happened,” he went on more gently. “We’ve been through a lot, I hope you can trust me by now.”

            Kensei looked away and waited to give her a little space. Silence covered the room, and Kiiko clenched her fists, her hands covered in sweat of her own. “You looked like you were dying when we were back at Machina Vision.”

            “It felt like it too,” Kensei replied. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

            “ _Scared_ me?!” Kiiko screamed suddenly. “What would happen to me if you died?? What would happen to everything?!”

            Kensei shut his eyes. “You’d find a way to keep fighting,” he sighed. “I’m not the only Kamen Rider in the world.”

            “How can you just be so sure about that?” she asked quietly. “GENM was destroyed last night. Everything there…it’s just gone! All the people who could make new games for us, all the people there, they’re gone! They’re up in the sky with all the other victims!”

            “I know,” he replied just as quietly. “They’re not gone, though. There’s still ways to fix this.”

            She stared at him, her eyes blazing. “What about you? What if something happens to you? Will you just go up in that portal or whatever? What if you don’t? What if it just acts like regular poison?”

            Kensei leaned hard on his hands and opened his eyes, blinking a few times to try to clear them. “There’s still people to keep fighting.”

            Kiiko clenched her fists again. “…stop it,” she said, her voice a sharp whisper.

            “Stop what?”

            “…stop talking like that,” Kiiko hissed. “That was them, right? The old Kamen Riders. That was what Poppy said. You said when they come back they can make you better. We just have to get one more of their old games and they can help.”

            “We don’t know how many it’ll take, Kiiko-chan,” Kensei sighed again. “We’re probably really close, yeah…I want to believe that after what we saw. Everyone else said they saw it too, right?”

            She grabbed his jacket and yanked him around to look her in the face. “So don’t _want_ to believe it, _believe it_ ,” she snapped. Kiiko let go and sighed. “Besides, things _are_ getting better. They called and said Kasuga woke up today.”

            Surprised, Kensei couldn’t help but laugh a little. “That’s good! That he’s awake,” he said, not adding he was surprised to hear that Kiiko thought it was good that another Rider she’d always dismissed before was back on his feet. It hardly seemed like a good time for it.

            “Let’s go check on him, then,” Kensei said and stood up, his arm hanging heavily at his side.

 

XXX

 

            The nurse behind the desk looked genuinely sorry when she said, “I’m sorry sir, visiting hours are over for the day.”

            “I’ll take the responsibility for it,” said another nurse as she seemed to come out a door behind the counter just in time to hear the message. “It’s important. Vitally.”

            “Ah, Karino-san? Are you sure?” the first nurse asked, leaning over in her seat in surprise at the other nurse’s sudden appearance.

            “ _Very_ sure,” Karino said, then winked at Kensei and Kiiko. “This way, if you please,” she said to them as she led the way.

            Kensei scratched the back of his head, wondering what to say when he saw Yoshoku again. He decided to start with a little gratitude for the person right in front of him. “Thanks for coming down to help us like this, Asuna-san.”

            The nurse smiled back at him. “Don’t tell people, they’ll think I do favors for everyone.” She looked the other way back at Kiiko and her smile had faded. “Are you all right, Mishiranu-san? You look kind of—”

            “Just fine,” Kiiko said, a little quickly. “You’re sure that was them last night? The Kamen Riders you knew?”

            Asuna faced forward as they got into an elevator. “I really don’t know how it works, I shouldn’t try to say.”

            “Then _guess_ ,” Kiiko said sharply.

            It took a minute for the nurse to answer. “Really, it did look like them,” Asuna said. “I want to believe it was.”

            The group didn’t talk anymore before they got to Yoshoku Kasuga’s room. He was sitting up in his bed, staring at the door like he knew they’d be coming, that same driven light in his eyes as always.

            Kensei couldn’t help smiling some. Nothing could keep Yoshoku Kasuga down, could it? Not even being put in a coma.

            “Finally, a familiar face,” he said as the others came in. “Where’s my gun?”

            “It’s in the CR ward,” Kensei replied. “We’ll get it back as soon as they let you out, promise. You feeling all right?”

            “I _feel_ like I’ve been staying in one place way too long,” Yoshoku answered, grunting in annoyance. He looked over at Asuna. “Excuse me for being blunt, but when can I get out of here?”

            Asuna waved her clipboard at him. “Just a few more tests, Kasuga-san! If the doctors are satisfied with those, you can be released today.”

            Suddenly Kiiko stepped around them to be in front. “Speaking of doctors, we’ve got a lot to catch you up on,” she declared, and gave Kensei a sidelong look.

            Yoshoku folded his hands over his chest and nodded. “I saw something on the news I was gonna ask you guys about. It said that big hole in the sky all the monsters come out of, it’s huge now. You can even see it in the daytime. If they let me get up and look out the window, I mean.”

            “We’re thinking of your health,” Asuna said sternly.

            But he waved it off and faced Kensei. “Did you guys break something while I was out, or what?”

            Kiiko spoke up first, like she was doing it on purpose. “We _fixed_ things. They beat the Amal Corrupture and sent back all the games he stole. It’s like that because we’re about to break the old Riders out,” she looked over at Kensei again. “Right?”

            Yoshoku grunted. “Damn it, Hidenaga! You guys had a party when you knew I couldn’t come? That’s cold,” he said, but smirked at the end of it.

            “Doku will be happy to tell you all about it, I’m sure,” Kensei said with a tired smile, but still a smile.

            “Is she serious, though?” Yoshoku asked. “We’re really about to bring the old Kamen Riders back?” The “we” he used sounded strongly emphasized.

            Kensei shrugged and opened his mouth, but Kiiko opened hers first. Asuna opened hers before either of them, though. “It certainly looked that way from the portal opened so wide last night,” she explained to Yoshoku.

            Suddenly all of their phones rang at the same time. Kensei’s battered red one, Kiiko’s shiny brand new silver one, Asuna’s hospital-issued black one. Even Yoshoku’s phone on the nightstand vibrated across the surface.

            The same voice said the same thing to all of them. “Excuse me, folks, but there’s a flashing thing on the computers down at the front desk that says… ‘Bugster Alert’. And it’s saying something’s happening in the…basement?”

            Yoshoku was the first one to respond, jumping out of his bed and running down the hall for the closest elevator.

            “Ah!! Kasuga-san, wait!” Asuna yelled after him.

            He didn’t.

 

XXX

 

            Underneath Seito University Hospital, in its secret CR ward, a computer in the middle of one wall suddenly rocked. Its screen saver of the CR logo forming and disassembling itself disappeared under a field of purple static. The static glowed and bulged out, forming a stream of rippling purple matter.

            The stream landed on the main meeting table with a splat. Long, crooked arms pushed themselves out of the blob.  Bony fingers flexed on the ends. Short, frog-like legs formed on the bottom.

            Before it even finished congealing the small monster jumped off the table and started throwing things aside, searching…

 

XXX

 

            The elevator down to the secret CR ward seemed to be taking forever, knowing there’d been an alert from what seemed like one of the few places they knew they were safe.

            But as soon as the doors opened Yoshoku charged into the main meeting room where they could hear sounds of growling and things being thrown around. Which was exactly what was happening: a tiny purple gremlin, barely a foot tall but with monkey-like arms that were easily two, was hanging by one arm off a filing cabinet and yanking papers out of the drawers and throwing them all over the floor when he didn’t find what he was looking for.

            “Where’d you put my gun?!” Yoshoku demanded as he ran to a likely-looking desk.

            “Not over there! It’s—” Kensei tried to answer right before the gremlin spotted him and threw the handful of papers it didn’t want right into his face.

            Yoshoku held up a small silver briefcase in both hands. “Is it in here??”

            Kensei shook his head rapidly. “No, that’s—”

            But the gremlin’s giant mouth lit up in a grin of yellow teeth as he spotted the case. He jumped like a frog off the side of the drawer, crashed into Yoshoku and knocked the briefcase out of his hands.

            “I’ll stop it!” Kensei yelled as he put on his Gamer Driver and grabbed his En En Chambara game with his other hand. As he tightened his grip to hit the trigger, his arm suddenly went totally limp and the game dropped out of his fingers.

            Seeing that he wasn’t about to be attacked after all, the gremlin grabbed the briefcase’s handle and went for the elevator. He ran thrusting out his longer arms, planting and swinging his body forward before swinging his arms out in front of him to plant his hands again.

            Kiiko shoved a pink and green six-shooter into Yoshoku’s hands along with a Rider Gashat: Bang Bang Sunset. “Here’s your gun! Stop that thing!” she yelled.

            “ **Henshin!** ” Yoshoku said, and pulled the trigger. Power rushed out from the Western game plugged into his gun, cahnging it into a larger form and changing Yoshoku himself into Kamen Rider Sling. Like so many times before his poncho and hat dropped out of the game’s title screen and locked onto his blue undersuit.

            And right away he fired. His bullets chewed a path in the floor behind the gremlin, but the monster had just a bit too much of a head start and already seemed to know exactly where he was going. The little monster swung himself forward again and extended one of his webbed feet out to push the up button as he got to the elevator.

            The elevator was already there with how fast they’d rushed into the room and the doors opened immediately. As soon as he landed on the floor the little creature held the case against his chest and pushed with his feet to make himself somersault backwards into the elevator. He stuck his tongue out at his pursuers just as the doors closed and Sling’s last shot left a smoking dent in them instead of the creature’s head.

            “Damn it!” Sling cursed and repeatedly pushed the up button to call the elevator back down. Kensei ran up behind him, and Sling somehow gave him a withering look even with a mask on. “What happened, Hidenaga? You just dropped your game!” Sling lifted his head as a thought seemed to occur to him. “Oh my god…is it your arm?”

            “It doesn’t matter what it is,” Kensei growled. “What matters is what was in that case! There were some new games they led me to back in Machina Vision. If a monster got in _here_ to steal those, something serious must be happening!”

            The LED board over the elevator doors showed it starting to come back down. Sling sighed. “It’s all right, we’ll catch that damn thing. Somebody’ll have seen what way it went.”

            Kensei didn’t say anything. He’d been hoping for a chance to recover before another crisis after the hellacious night before.

            He should’ve known better than to get his hopes up.

 

XXX

 

            Sling was right about how easy it would be to find the little monster’s trail once they made it to the floor where he’d gotten off. They stepped out into a hallway with a pair of overturned gurneys and a doctor kneeling over the unlucky passenger of one who was rubbing his head while a doctor and a nurse tried to calm a pair of crying children. All of them stopped and looked up at the armored cowboy and the people behind him.

            “Don’t worry, we’ll catch the monster,” Kensei said reassuringly.

            Everyone just stared.

            The four of them just jumped through the mess and followed it down a stairway full of terrified patients and out through a backdoor. Sling spotted a hopping purple shape and ran after it taking aim. Kiiko and Poppy touched hands together and merged into their Navi shape, flying after the gremlin.

            Kensei fell further and further behind the others. His eyes were blurring again and it felt like he was dragging someone grabbing on to both of his legs. Looked like that healing item from the night before had worn off. He didn’t even feel pain from his arm anymore

            How much time did he have left? Would the poison spread to his whole body before it finished him off?

            Was it just his mind playing a trick on him when he looked up and saw the purple portal flicker and stretch? Then two explosions, even brighter purple in color, he could see over the roofs of the buildings around him.

            The Mighty Hand felt cold and reassuring as Kensei tried to think of what could’ve been so powerful it would’ve made two explosions that big. He pushed the lowest button and a rush of hot, electrifying power rushed out and covered his body. Carefully Kensei lifted his hand and got his fingers to curl into a fist. He didn’t clench it as hard as he could; it seemed like a bad idea to push himself too far.

            But Kensei knew he still had to push himself. He was a Kamen Rider, he had a job to do. And even if there was another Rider around…that Rider had topped out at Level 3. What was Sling going to do against whatever caused explosions that big? Kensei had to keep it together until this was over and done.

            “Hidenaga? You okay?” Sling called back at him.

            “Managing,” Kensei replied.

            “Yeah well you better your manage yourself over here. I’m looking at a hell of a Game Area,” Sling replied. “That’s what these things are called, right?”

            Kensei rubbed his clearing eyes and jogged over to where Sling had stopped. The street beyond had disappeared: where the buildings should’ve been, there was a tiny village of wooden huts just past which was a bright green forest. In the middle of the little village was the little monster who, the briefcase still clutched in his hand.

            And through his chest was the blade of a shining sword.

The weapon was so bright Kensei and Sling felt themselves getting braver just by looking at it.  Clutching the hilt of the weapon was a knight in armor that was just as bright as the sword. “Another minion of the Ruler of Darkness falls before my holy blade!” the knight laughed. “And he looks to carry richer pickings than such a weakling’s ever carried before on my endless quest!” He grabbed the briefcase and held it up high, a victorious fanfare playing from somewhere. “But doubting good fortune will never carry me to the Dark One’s stronghold! Ha-ha!”

Sling made a noise of disbelief, but then he holstered his gun and stared walking over to the knight. Then Kensei grabbed his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“I’m gonna ask him to give us the case back,” Sling replied. “He’s a good guy, right? He should just give it back to us if we say it’s ours.”

“But haven’t almost all of the guys from these games been enemies? Shouldn’t we be careful?” Kensei suggested.

“Hidenaga-san’s right,” Poppy’s voice said from the Navi. “I’m definitely getting a Corrupture feeling from him. Very powerful, very hostile.”

Sling scratched the back of his neck even through his suit. “…but what kind of game would have someone like that as a bad guy?”

“I have a hunch,” Poppy mumbled. “Stay here for a minute, don’t let him out of your sight while we go check something out.” Navi flew away in the direction the other explosion had come from.

After Navi had disappeared from sight, Sling turned back to Kensei. “So we just stand here and wait for them to get back? What about him?” Kensei shrugged his shoulders.

The knight slid his glowing sword out of the tiny monster he’d just defeated. He looked exactly like the knight on the art for Taddle Quest, the Brave Knight of the legend.

Right then the knight called over to them. “I see you wear dark armor like the rest of the Dark Lord’s legions of the damned!”

            Sling looked back at Kensei in confusion. “Is he talking about me?”

            “I don’t see anybody else here in armor.”

            “Blue isn’t dark,” Sling retorted. “Is it?”

            The knight whirled his sword over his head and the blade erupted with white fire. “You’ll not shake my dedication by trying to confuse me with questions instead of rushing to join battle with me, varlats!”

            “What’s a varlat?” Sling asked, but his hand was already around the handle of his gun.

            “I’ll crush all foes who stand between me and the beautiful princess!” Brave Knight yelled. “Surrender now ‘ere you taste my righteous blade!” Then without waiting for them to surrender he changed, swinging his flaming sword.

            Sling fired but his bullets only bounced off Brave Knight’s shiny armor. Kensei dodged back out of the way and grabbed two of his Gashats. His eyes lost focus for a second but Kensei triggered the games and jammed them into his belt. Becoming Kamen Rider Utsura again, the River Harmony suit appeared and then the extra armor of Mighty Sketch locked on top.

            “Darkling Spawn! Stand aside or be struck down by my holy blade!” Brave Knight announced and then knocked Sling down with a vicious slash from his burning sword. He turned to face Utsura. “You look like the stronger one, will you dare test your mettle against a crusader as noble as I?” His blade seemed to sizzle louder to emphasize his point.

            “We just want the case the monster stole, it belongs to us.” Utsura said, but opened his backpack in case he’d need to use its weapons.

            The Brave Knight threw back his head and let out a deep, confident laugh. “Again you try to deceive me! Any child in the most remote village knows the knights of the realm have fallen! Only demons and blackguards travel the countryside anymore. As far as your treasure…if you were weak enough to lose it, it rightfully belongs to one with the strength to keep it.”

            Everything was suddenly covered by a painfully hot rippling whiteness.  Utsura jumped back to escape it and saw it was a field of fire from Brave Knight’s sword. He tried to take the Rider’s head off with it. “Enough talk! All the Followers of the Dark must fall, all attempts at courtesy are only a mask for their nefarious intentions!”

            “That’s about what I expected,” Utsura sighed. A metal tentacle whipped out of his backpack and sprayed a stream of tiny fish made of paint down Brave Knight’s face. The mess started burning off his armor right away but Brave Knight was blinded for the few seconds Utsura needed for another tentacle ending with a wide paintbrush to pop out and ram into Brave Knight’s chest. He went skidding across the ground and crashed into the wall of a hut.

            “I’ll handle him, Hidenaga,” Sling said after he managed to get up again.

            “No, you can’t,” Utsura warned him. “I think I figured out what game this is supposed to be.”

 

XXX

 

            The forest under Navi immediately stopped, turning into an endless ocean with its side right up against the side of the forest. Some of the trees were just halfway there where it changed to water.

            And cruising through the ocean was a fleet of battleships. Their cannons swiveled Navi’s way and for a terrifying second she froze in place. None of them fired at her, seeming to realize the navigator character wasn’t a viable target. Instead the cannons turned the other way, where some buildings could be seen in the distance where the Game Area ended.

            Then into the middle of the other ships came the biggest one Navi had ever seen. It was hard to miss: sticking out of the middle was a giant face metal of a familiar robot. Revol, the enemy robot from Bang Bang Shooting.

            “Targets acquired!” he bellowed. “All ships, _OPEN FIRE!_ ”

            A chorus of roaring cannons spewed shells at the skyline. Navi turned around and flew back as fast as she could. This was worse than one knight. But this also confirmed their fears.

            Awesome powers were at work. With the Riders in the shape they were in, could they possibly stop something so great?

 

XXX

 

            CLANG.

            Sling’s boot hit Brave Knight right in the chest, and the cowboy Rider hopped back away gasping in pain.

            “Ha-HA!” Brave Knight exclaimed while he lifted his sword and took a swing at the Kamen Rider. “You think your Dark Sovereign’s powers are any match for the Legendary Arms?”

            Out of nowhere a giant fish colored orange, yellow and green flew from behind Brave Knight and exploded as it hit him between the armored shoulders. Utsura’s paint cannon retracted into his backpack while their enemy slid across the ground and crashed into a hut, the building collapsing down on top of Brave Knight.

            “This must be Taddle Fantasy, it’s a game where you play the evil overlord instead of the hero who’s trying to defeat him,” Utsura explained. “That’s why the hero acts like such a nutjob! _He’s_ the player’s main enemy!”

            Both Riders looked up as the fallen hut exploded and Brave Knight charged out. “ **Penetrating Smiter!** ” he yelled and slashed his sword at the air.  A disc of white fire flew from the blade and exploded when it hit Utsura. His scream of pain was drowned in the sound of the explosion and he rolled across the ground, his extra armor from Mighty Sketch fading from the powerful attack.

            Then another powerful attack came.

            A loud whistling filled the air. “Oh my god! Hidenaga, run! RUN!” Sling screamed. Both Riders scrambled out of the way just before a huge artillery shell hit the ground, leaving a small crater.

            “The heavens show their aid!” Brave Knight laughed and charged at the Riders. His sword flashed out, launching a ball of white fire at Utsura. The dazed Rider swung his fishing pole, caught the fireball on its big hook and whipped it through the to send the projectile arcing over the treetops. He could heard the sound of an explosion not far away. A big one.

            But Utsura’s own fish hook swung back in front of him: it’d been half-melted and the tip cracked and broke off as he looked at it. “Ha ha! See the power of the one worthy to wield the holy blade! Your darkling weapons are children’s playthings to the almighty sword!”

            He seemed determined to prove it, swinging his burning sword at Utsura’s neck. The Rider gasped and lifted his fishing pole in a desperate attempt to block it but Brave Knight’s sword cleaved through his weapon like it was only a twig. Utsura tried to jump back out of the way but the blade was already so close he could feel the heat from it. Its fire-covered edge cut into his armor and knocked Utsura flat on his back.

            His eyes flickered and he tried to lift his right arm to defend itself, but it had gone completely numb again. Brave Knight stood over Utsura, aiming the point of his sword at the fisherman Rider’s heart. “So fall all members of the spawned armies!” Brave Knight crowed. The fire around his sword sizzled even louder.

            Behind him, Utsura could see Kamen Rider Sling crouching on one knee and aiming a shot at Brave Knight’s. Just then he heard the sound of another incoming artillery shell, and a shadow falling over Sling as he aimed his shot.

            “Get out of there!” Utsura yelled.

            First Sling squeezed the trigger on his gun with both hands. A long green snake shot from the barrel and wrapped itself around Brave Knight’s arm. Sling got up and ran as the snake sank its fangs into an opening in the wrist of Brave Knight’s holy armor.

            That was when the shell came down.

            Sling had only gotten a few steps away when it hit and exploded in a blast twenty feet high. The Kamen Rider yelled loud enough to be heard even over the explosion and spun through the air before he hit a tree.

            “No!” Utsura yelled. He jabbed a button on his Mighty Hand and the rush of energy filled his battered body, snapping his vision into sharp focus. He shot off the ground and shoulder-checked Brave Knight, but only bounced off and hit the ground even more sore than before. As if it wasn’t bad enough he heard another shell coming in. The sky seemed to go dark over him.

            “Your doom even comes from above, darkling infildel! I’ll grant you mercy on the tip of my blade!” Brave Knight said, still holding the stolen briefcase in his other hand. But the burst of energy from his Mighty Hand was still warm over Utsura’s body and he took off running away from the prophesized hero.

            Rocks and dirt bounced off Utsura’s armor as the shell landed and behind him. Where were those even coming from? The Rider just focused on putting as much distance as he could between Brave Knight to come up with a plan, but the sound of the knight’s armor clattering behind him just kept getting closer.

            Utsura was so focused on getting away he almost crashed right Navi coming the other way.

            “Hidenaga-san!” Poppy exclaimed. “There’s a whole navy over there shooting at every building in sight! You need to help us!”

            “I can barely handle the guy chasing me right now, and you want me to fight a whole navy??” Utsura asked in complete disbelief.

            Navi floated a little higher and glanced over his shoulder. “That case has new Gashats in it, right?”

            “I think so?”

Poppy went on. “Mishiranu-san says you play of a lot rhythm games, doesn’t she?”

            “Well, I play _ONE_ rhythm game a lot.”

            The ball of light that was Navi bulged and suddenly a Rider Gashat dropped into Utsura’s hand. It had a yellow-green case and showed a DJ in a yellow ball cap and pink sunglasses. The name on it was DoReMiFa Beat.

            Utsura held the game uncertainly. “Are you sure you don’t need it?” he asked.

            “Hurry up before he stabs you in the back, Kensei-kun!” Kiiko yelped. Utsura glanced over his shoulder and saw Brave Knight right behind him. The Rider hit the Gashat’s button.

            “Let’s play.” The game’s title screen appeared over Utsura and a stubby yellow robot flew out, segmented and attached itself to his body. “ **Level UP.** **Do Do Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do OKAY! Yeah! Yeah! OKAY! DoReMiFa (This is the beat they ask for!) Beeaat! To the beat! To the Beat!** ” Music played and faded into a record scratch.

The small robot turned itself to armor on top of Utsura’s undersuit, with a yellow chest plate with a built-in ball cap and pink sunglasses, a woofer on the shoulder and a panel with a pair of small turntables over his arm. “ **Do Re Mi Fa BEAT.** ”

            “You try another form! It will fail like your last!” Brave Knight promised. A bullet glanced off the back of his helmet.

            “Maybe if your sword was as strong as your _mouth_ ,” Sling said from behind him.

            Brave Knight chuckled and spun in place in a slow circle to look at both of them as he said, “I’ve journeyed to the corners of the ruined kingdom to find and be worthy of the holy weapons. Even if the Dark Emperor dragged you out of the deepest, foulest pit in the netherworld, do you really think you’re any match for the legendary champion?!”

            Sling tapped his gun against the brim of his hat and made a slow, smirking kind of laugh. “See, that’s the thing about demons,” he said. “They don’t fight fair.” He lowered his gun and quickly fired a burst across the ground and kicked up a cloud of dust all around Brave Knight. “Now, Hidenaga!”

            Utsura didn’t need to hear it twice. He spun the turntable on his arm and felt his new power activating. A dance beat started playing around them. “I can do this,” Utsura whispered, trying to ignore his arm getting heavy again. He danced up to Brave Knight, ducked under a blind swing from the holy sword, then as a strong beat came up Utsura slapped his palm against the knight’s chest.

            A blast of musical notes spread across the area from the hit and left behind the word GREAT from matching the beat. The music built up again and Utsura hit Brave Knight with his knee, another blast of musical notes and another GREAT. Brave Knight actually staggered from the hit.

            But even this form probably couldn’t beat him, but that was all right: Utsura didn’t need to beat him, just keep Brave Knight off-balance until they could get a real advantage.

            The blinded knight started swinging his sword but Utsura danced out of the way as it came down and slit the ground. Matching the music Utsura slapped both of his palms against Brave Knight’s chin and was rewarded with two GREATs.

Brave Knight’s head jerked back and the plume on his helmet waved around like a snake having a seizure. All of a sudden Kamen Rider Sling jumped in the air behind Utsura, firing his gun into the gap in the armor under Brave Knight’s helmet while his head was leaning back. He gurgled in surprise at being shot in the throat, letting Utsura run up and slam his elbow into Brave Knight’s chest at the crest of another beat, knocking their enemy down to the appearance of a bright PERFECT graphic.

            “Damn, man. You’re _merciless_ today,” Utsura said.

            “Admit it: you’re glad I’m on _your_ side,” Sling chuckled. “Stay here, I got an idea.” He ran over to where Brave Knight was lying in the dirt and grabbed the briefcase out of the dazed warrior’s hand. Utsura was about to jump over Brave Knight to see what was in the case but Sling held up his hand. “Not yet!”

            “What are you talking about, not yet? Why—Oh,” Utsura started to say, then figured it out. The sun seemed to have been blotted out by something dropping down on them.Sling jumped over Brave Knight’s prone body and somersaulted the rest of the way out of the incoming shadow just before an explosion erupted behind him from another artillery shot coming over the trees.

            Sling chuckled again as Brave Knight groaned in pain at the bottom of the new crater. “See? Demons _do_ fight dirty,” he said. “Why don’t we see what we found here?” He blew the briefcase open with his gun and it flopped open.

Inside were two brand new Rider Gashats: the blue for Aqua Beat! that Utsura had already noticed the night before, but another one was in the other side, a single-panel royal blue one that said Chase Billion on the label. The art showed a bright red sports car on the bottom, a skier above it and then a skyscraper with gold-tinged windows.

            “These _were_ awesome treasures, looks like,” Sling said and grabbed for Chase Billion, while Utsura picked up the other one. “You stole these from Machina Vision?”

            “Not really,” Utsura admitted. “I was led to this…kind of wonder if somebody there wanted me to take them.”

            Sling tilted his head. “Who at Machina Vision would want you stealing games from them?”

            “Ohmygodohmygodohmygodthisisreallyhappening,” Kiiko said and made a barely-suppressed squee noise in Utsura’s ear, drowning out Sling’s question. He and Poppy both snickered.

            “RAAAAAGH!” Brave Knight screamed as he recovered and jumped out of the crater. Dirt was sizzling off his armor and he held his sword with both hands then, the fire of the blade even hotter now. “I’ll never surrender, no matter what tricks you sink to using! My quest was given to me by the heavens themselves!”

            Kamen Rider Sling spun the new Gashat on his hand and loaded it into the cylinder of his gun. “I’ll handle this one, Hidenaga. A whole navy sounds more your speed.”

            “Did you just tell me you think I’m tough?”

            “Teaming up was _your_ idea, Hidenaga,” Sling said, waving him off. “So go make sure nobody bombs us while I’m cleaning up against Crazy Boy here, would ya?”

            Utsura chuckled and shook his head. “Sure thing, Yoshoku. Be careful, okay?”

            His fellow Rider just waved him away over his shoulder, and Utsura jogged into the forest with Navi leading the way.

            Brave Knight glared down at Sling, seeming to get even taller with the force of his anger. “You send away your ally…do you know you face death this day, and wish to spare him, or keep all the glory of defeating the heavens’ champion to yourself?” he demanded. “You will fail either way, dark soldier!”

            A soft, mocking chuckle was Sling’s first answer, making Brave Knight growl angrily. “Because I’ve got a gun, everyone underestimates me,” he replied. “Everyone except them.”

            He aimed and fired.

 

XXX

 

            Just like Poppy and Kiiko said, a flat line was where the forest ended and the ocean suddenly started. Naval ships were everywhere, blowing holes in buildings that just could be seen at the edges of the Game Area.

            And in the middle of the biggest ship, in the middle of the fleet, was the oversized but familiar face of Revol, the combat robot who appeared in most of the games in the Bang Bang series.

            That meant this had to be Bang Bang Simulations.

            And that meant the game for him to use was obvious.

            “Hope I can still do this,” Utsura sighed, then took out the new Gashat, and turned the knob on the front toward the Aqua Beat! label. “ **Hey now! Rhythm Level Fifffffff-TEE! Trouble in paradise! Sun’s shining, sharks are swimming, girls are dancing! Move yourself to the beat-beat-Beat! Move to the Beat-Beat-BEAT! THE AQUA BEAT!** ”

            Utsura slapped the Dual Gashat into his Gamer Driver. A cool, watery feeling of power covered his body as his armor turned an ocean blue. The Aqua Beat! title screen unfolded above him, a strange Gamer swimming out with the head of a dolphin, a large block of wood for a body and a surfboard for a tail. It floated around Utsura’s body a few times then split apart.

            The dolphin head on the Gamer attached to one shoulder, the block of wood clamped over his chest and formed itself into a grinning tiki, and the surfboard forming armor on his other shoulder. A mop of wild blue surfer’s hair grew out of the top of his head and a salty sea breeze immediately picked up, whipping his hair majestically.

            “Oh my god,” Kiiko murmured.

            “Feeling a little…excited, Kiiko-chan?” Poppy teased.

            Navi shook back and forth in the air. “I AM NOT! BE QUIET, ONEE!” Kiiko snapped. Poppy chortled.

            Revol’s face on the main ship swung to look at him, and every gun in the fleet turned Utsura’s way too. “FIRE!!” the giant robot-face commanded.

“ **Open: Cruiser! Surf’s up!** ” his Driver announced with even more energy than usual. A wave swelled up out of the water and a bright blue surfboard with a yellow racing stripe down the middle jumped out of Utsura’s icon. He jumped on and it zoomed away from the edge of the forest before a chain of explosions tore up the ground.

His poisoned arm had gone numb and it was getting harder to breathe so Utsura pushed a button on the Mighty Hand and made a ragged gasp. His book trembled and he might’ve fallen off the board if it didn’t seem like it magnetized his feet to it through some kind of game design magic. Feeling came back to his arm even if his vision was still blurring, but he knew he’d have to just do the best he could if he was going to be handling so many enemies.

A pair of metal staves formed in Utsura’s hands, a crystal ball with a musical note on the end of each one, sharp and flat. “Let’s kick up a storm,” Utsura said and in a flash the crystal balls were surrounded by fire, like torches.

He surfed between a pair of ships and a loud island drumbeat started to play. Bubbles floated out of the water with brightly-colored musical notes bouncing inside.

“Ships 7, 9! Target in your median! Open fire!” RevolShip barked. Cannons on the sides of the ships fired at the surfing Kamen Rider, but following the rhythm of the drum Utsura ducked and jumped out of the shots’ way. With every beat he hit one of the bubbles and the fire around the tips of his torches got brighter and brighter. Once Utsura surfed to the end of the space between the two ships Utsura spun the torches in his hands and hit the ends together.

A bright PERFECT graphic appeared where they touched and a huge waterspout formed between the two boats. It pushed them out of the water and they were sent spinning into another two ships with horrifying crashes that shattered all of them to pieces.

The drumbeat came even faster when Utsura turned, surfing behind another ship. “Ship 13! Fire at coordinates 12-E!” As the cannon roared Utsura jumped high and the shot tore the back end off the ship he’d just been passing. In the air Utsura swiped his torches through a series of bubbles in time to the beat, building up their fire again.

            “Ship 3, fire at coordinates 4-F!” RevolShip’s giant face ordered and more of the fleet aimed their weapons at the Rider’s falling shape. Utsura curled himself into a ball while his surfboard zipped up underneath him. When the first cannons roared and the sky around him filled with fire, Utsura thrust his blazing torches out to his sides, another PERFECT graphic appearing.

            The water under the ship in front of him start to churn and in less than a minute a whirlpool was pulling it underwater. It whirled to the side and a cannon shot it had meant for Utsura ripped into the nose of RevolShip.

            “You’re kicking so much butt, Kensei-kun!” Kiiko squealed. “See?! This was such a good idea to play this game so much!”

            Torches spun in his hands and popped more bubbles, their glow gathering again. “ _This_ would’ve come in handy last night!” he yelled while he surfed around the edge of the whirlpool. The nose of the ship in the whirlpool skimmed the edge and sliced through the side of RevolShip.

            “Kensei-kun, watch out!” Kiiko yelled over Utsura’s shoulder.

            “What?! What is it?” he said and looked behind him. As he did everything in sight turned into a grey blur.

            Then a red-hot cannon shot hit the water and exploded right behind him.

 

XXX

 

            A ray of sunlight caught on the outline of Sling’s new game from where it was plugged into the side of his gun. Brave Knight gave an unimpressed grunt.

            “Honestly?” he asked. “You think a tiny trinket like that compares to the Holy Arms? I earned these by surviving the perils of the Eight Temples and triumphing over their Grand Guard Beasts! Their power’s great enough for a worthy knight to stand against the Dark King himself!”

            “Oh yeah?” Kamen Rider Sling answered casually. “Sorry I missed that, but sounds like I missed a lot of cool things lately. Coma. This thing, though? A friend helped me steal it back from this guy who was always yelling at us. _That_ was a cool thing to see.”

             Sling aimed and fired his gun at Brave Knight, who didn’t flinch. His confidence seemed to be everything he said, but Sling wasn’t trying to shoot him.

            “ **Savvy Level 50!** ” said the Gamer Pamaka in his hand as the title screen spread out above him and Sling’s poncho and cowboy hat spun away. “ **Watching the market like a hawk. How about 500,000? Where did you BUY that??! What’s in _YOUR_ portfolio??**”

A Gamer whirled out, shaped like a briefcase but a bigger one than the case they’d stolen back from Brave Knight and a gunmetal grey in color. It opened over Sling’s head and dropped a sheet of cloth over Sling. It shaped itself into a luxurious black business suit with a red silk necktie on him.

Two shapes dropped out of the case next, a gunstock that attacked to the back of Sling’s Pamaka and a long barrel that attached to the front, then finally a scope on the top, turning the six-shooter into a hunting rifle. The briefcase dropped down then and locked into place behind his shoulders.

“Elegant finery doesn’t frighten me!” Brave Knight declared.

“It’s not the suit, idiot, it’s the negotiator inside it,” Sling fired back.

Then he fired back.

A slender bullet shot across the field. When it hit Brave Knight in the chest he was knocked back until he was only standing on one foot and squawked in surprise. As fast as he could he regained his balanced and swiped his sword in an X-shape. “Holy Cross Consumption!” he yelled and an X of white fire shot back across toward Kamen Rider Sling.

With an unexpected speed for his new formal outfit Sling was dashing out of the way of the attack before it had a chance to hit him. He jumped to the straw roof of one of the huts and got off another shot that caught Brave Knight right between the eyes. The holy crusader grunted and stumbled, caught by surprise again by his enemy having attacks that were suddenly doing actual damage.

Brave Knight drew two mystic symbols in the air and held his sword sideways so the blade went through both of them. “ **Come to my aid, hunters of the forest!** ” Brave Knight said in a voice echoing with magical force. Right away Sling heard a wolf howl and then another one howled too, even though it was broad daylight.

            A grey streak charged out of the woods and jumped over the roof of the hut where Sling was crouched. He jumped out of the way just in time but as soon as his shoes hit the ground another grey streak came at him out of the forest. Again he dodged but it came close enough to rip the side of his jacket. The streaks landed near each other and Sling could see they were wolves, exposing their teeth at him.

            Without warning the wolves jumped again, coming at Sling from both sides. Again Sling jumped to try and get out of their way but they were quicker than he’d expected and raked his sides. He fell and bounced off the ground just as a white fireball arced across the village, and Sling desperately jumped to get out of the way. The heat from the explosion singed the back of his suit before he could get behind a tree for a few seconds’ worth of cover.

            His rifle hit the ground and Sling took the briefcase off his shoulders instead. He flipped open the lid and a transparent screen appeared over it, showing a row of small tabs over a blank area for a list. INVESTMENTS, TROPHIES, VEHICLES said a few. In the corner was the number 550,000. Sling tapped INVESTMENTS then hit another button.

            The wolves howled as they charged after Sling again, and he turned and pointed his briefcase at them. In the top corner the number dropped to 530,000 but as it did a pile of raw meat appeared out of nowhere between Kamen Rider Sling and his attackers. As they hit the meat the wolves yipped in surprise, then as they realize what it was they stopped and devoured the chops in front of them.

            Two shots rang out in quick succession and the wolves keeled over then disappeared. A pair of snarling wolf heads on wooden plaques floated up from where they’d been, a message of HUNTING TROPHIES +2 appearing for a second over them before it all faded away.

            “Rrraaarrrgh!”

            Brave Knight brought his sword down in a powerful swing that hit the ground. A split-second later a column of fire exploded out of the dirt and blasted at Sling leaving a smoking crack behind it.

            Just before the tree where he’d taken cover exploded from the magical attack Kamen Rider Sling lunged and rolled across the dusty ground, stopping in a crouch. When he stood up, Brave Knight gasped in disbelief.

            “What abyssal sorcery is this?!” he asked. “Your vestments…are immaculate!” Exactly like he said, Sling’s suit had completely repaired itself at some point when neither of them was paying attention: none of the damage from the wolves attacking him was neither, was a speck of dirt from running around a medieval peasant village.

            “When you’re the best, you’ve gotta look like it all the time,” Sling replied.

            “You won’t look like anything after _this_ , dark horror!”

            “Everything’s ‘dark’ with you, isn’t it?” Sling shook his head before a fireball came screaming from Brave Knight’s sword. The Rider raised his briefcase and a geyser of stacked bills gushed out until the fireball had been completely smothered, leaving only a few smoldering stacks of currency on the ground. The balance on the window had dropped to 480,000.

            Sling pulled back on the slide of his rifle. “ **Billion Critical Bourgeois!** ” it yelled with excitement. Brave Knight held up his sword, charging it with power. “Final Purification!”

            They fired at the same time. Instead of a bullet from Sling’s rifle though, suddenly three brand new sports cars drove out of nowhere and came out from three directions. Red, yellow and black. They came together like a way and all went up in one horrendous fireball, made even bigger by Brave Knight’s latest attack going off right on top of him.

            The little balance display on Sling’s screen ran down to 0.

            Two giant words appeared over his head: GAME CLEAR. Something dropped into his hand, a Dual Gashat with a purple case. The side facing him had the label for a game called Taddle Fantasy.

            Just like Utsura had said.

            And speaking of Utsura, Sling turned around to head after him.

 

XXX

 

            For an eternity Kamen Rider Utsura felt himself spinning through the air, clinging to his board in front of his face and the two torches that were his only defense. There was a hard splash and bubbling sound around his ears that he managed to get himself together enough to realize was hitting the water. Utsura pushed himself around so he was sitting in the water on his surfboard, but his vision hadn’t cleared. He flopped onto his back and tried desperately to get himself together enough to fight again.

            “Kensei-kun? Kensei-kun! Are you all right?” Kiiko’s voice came from right next to his ear.

            He pushed a button on his Mighty Hand a sharp feeling rush of strength covered his body. “I can move, but I still can’t see,” he replied.

            “You have to move! They’re aiming their guns at you right now!” Poppy told him.

            “What good’ll that do me if I just go right into the side of a boat?” Utsura sighed. He rolled onto his stomach again and sat up.

            Navi buzzed lightly. “Wait, I have an idea,” Poppy said quietly. “We combined with each other to be like this, right Mishiranu-san? What if we tried to combine with Hidenaga-san too? Maybe we could help him see.”

            “I’ll try anything right now,” Utsura said as the metal grinding of a cannon moving to take aim at him threatened to drown out his words. Navi pressed itself against his forehead, Utsura’s eyes seeming to get even blurrier.

            Then Navi disappeared into Utsura. His body shivered with tiny streams of energy running over it for just a second.

            And suddenly Kamen Rider Utsura could see _everything_.

            He could see the thin permanent ring of dark buildup on the barrel of the cannon pointed at his head. With a reaction time so quick he didn’t even realize he was doing anything Utsura jumped back up and his board zipped away as the cannon shell hit the water. A giant wave rippled out from the impact and Utsura bent low to ride it around the front of the ship that fired at him.

            Everything looked different now, yet somehow it was as if he’d always been able to see that, like the others being part of him made it seem so natural. Utsura could see the ocean around them laid out on a grid with a number and letter showing on the bottom of each one. And looking up at the side of the battleship on his left, he could see the outline of the looming RevolShip through it.

“Fire! 19-G!” the villain’s voice called out again and Utsura could hear more guns moving to take aim at him.

The light of Utsura’s torches had gone out with all the beats he’d missed when he almost blacked out. Cruising around the edge of the battleship to bring Revol’s into sight, though, he was hitting the bubbles in front of him with even more precision as he went past. By the time he could see RevolShip itself the torches had gotten brighter than ever with all the rhythmic power Utsura had built up.

“You’re taking on our entire fleet on a _surboard_?” RevolShip asked as it saw him. “They must be getting desperate.”

“Let’s finish this,” he whispered, then started this game’s finishing attack.

“ **AQUA CRITICAL LUAU!!!** ” his driver said, then the bubbles with their musical signals came out of the water twice as fast as they had before. Utsura popped them with his torches until the flames reached from his elbows to his head.

Still the bubbles came even faster and Utsura started to spin the torches in his hands to catch them all in time with the beat, wheels of fire turning in his hands.

Behind him a battleship fired at the Rider’s back. The shot screamed closer until Utsura turned and swatted it away with one torch. He raised the torches and held them together above his head at a cross-slant.

“ **PERFECT!!!** ” said his Gamer Driver, at the same time RevolShip himself turned his biggest cannon straight at Utsura.

But the chance to fire it never came. Underneath the ship the water swelled as a gigantic wave formed, tipping RevolShip over so sharply it hit the battleship next to it and knocked off the end of the smaller vessel.

Utsura’s wave kept on going even as when turned RevolShip completely upside down and dunked it underwater. The wave grew even higher and came down like a falling wall of water on half of the fleet with a huge, echoing crash. Pieces of them flew everywhere or bobbed up out of the water as the tidal wave dispersed before sinking back down into the depths again.

“That was amazing, Kensei-kun!” Kiiko gushed in a voice he could only hear in his left ear.

“Everything she said about your rhythm skills was true,” Poppy added in his right ear, her voice full of quiet awe.

“Because we always played _her_ favorite game for ‘training,’ ” Utsura replied, laughing softly.

“And it paid off!” Kiiko insisted. The other two just chuckled.

Slowly the water rippled under Utsura’s board, as the dark shape of RevolShip surfaced again. It was still upside down but there was an ominous hole in the side now.

And to their surprise a bright pink air with a yellow outline appeared, floating up and down pointing into the hole. An insistent “GO!” flickered above it too.

“Guess the game isn’t over yet,” Utsura muttered. Preparing himself for whatever he might find inside, he jumped into the hole.

 

XXX

 

Electronic eyes scanned the passages of the capsized ship, lit only by red emergency lights, looking for any sign of movement.

Any sign of a deadly intruder.

Revol strode down the hallway on the ceiling, determined not to give away any sign of fear. He looked almost exactly like the version fought by the Kamen Riders of the old generation: a faceless, armor-played grey robot with a gun mounted on the back of each hand, but also wearing a white naval officer’s cap on top of his head, a ship’s wheel and golden medals decorating his chest.

Inside, fear was chewing a pit in his artificial stomach. How could it not? It was supposed to take an entire enemy fleet to challenge him, and one surfer had managed to wreak havoc on his forces instead. And the Corrupture had seen enough to know the Kamen Riders wouldn’t stop until their opponent was finished off. Utsura would be coming…

But he didn’t dare let it show that he was afraid to the Corrupture Cells walking the halls with him. They looked distinctly out of place in their camouflage fatigues and body armor, pointing their assault rifles into every shadow big enough to hold an enemy. That didn’t matter, of course. Bringing down the intruder and proving his worth to the leader who was above even Revol, that was what mattered.

Without warning there was a quick bubbled yelp of surprise. Revol looked back over his shoulder armor and a Cell he was sure had been backing him up there was gone. Yet there was nothing there showing a struggle or remains of his underling.

“Stay alert! We have a confirmed hostile nearby!” Revol ordered the rest. The Cells swept the halls in wider arcs with their lights.

Still nothing.

            Then another bubbling sound of alarm and the cone of light of a Cell to Revol’s right went out. He looked over but again he was too late: it was like the Cell had just disappeared into thin air.

            And while the Corrupture were all looking over at the other side of the hall a sheet of cloth looking just like the pipes and dark wall behind them fell away. And a Kamen Rider wearing a long scarf jumped out from behind it, grabbing a pair of _kusarigama_ , small scythes on chains, from where they hung off his back.

            The ancient weapons snaked out and raked across the back of another Cell who fell with a strangled cry. All the Corrupture looked and spotted the shadowy figured who somersaulted over their heads and grabbed onto the catwalk grille on top of the hallway. He scrambled down the hall like a spider as the Cells’ bullets popped all around him.

            Revol himself took aim with both of his guns and fired one roaring burst from them at the same time. They erupted against the ceiling and the attacker feel down, motionless, and the tip of his scarf on fire.

            Dashing over, the Corrupture aimed their weapons at him to finish him off. A Cell nudged the body with the tip of his rifle, but then Revol realized something.

            “It’s just a straw dummy!” he yelled, kicking the golden stalks sticking out of the decoy’s shirt.

            “Insults are all you got left?”

            The monsters whirled around to see the Kamen Rider who’d just attacked standing there, totally unharmed. One of his scythes was in his hand, and he stabbed the tip into his other arm.

            A wave of dark energy spurted out and covered the surviving Corrupture. The Cells aimed their rifles but suddenly lowered their guns until the barrels touched the floor, as if the guns were too heavy to hold up.

            Revol tried to aim a shot at the Rider but he could barely lift his own arms. While the Corrupture couldn’t retaliate their opponent jumped into the air, split into three copies and each drew a _ninjato_. Three long scarves trailing behind them they pounced on the Corrupture. Their swords went right through the Cells, but even though the other attacker’s blade went through a gap in Revol’s armor he swatted the Rider aside with the heavy gauntlet over his forearm. The strength-draining effect Revol was under already felt to be passing so the robotic monster lifted his arms and blazed away at the Kamen Rider, catching him in a hail of gunfire with small explosions going off on his armor.

            Suddenly the Rider tossed something at Revol, a bomb that filled the hallway with a cloud of smoke.

            “You can’t get away from me, Utsura!” Revol yelled the mission statement his leader had burned into his mind. “I know every inch of this ship! Even if you defeat us here, we’re a virus! We’ve come back evolved! There’s no end to our kind!”

            “Yeah, you’ve got the numbers! You didn’t flinch at all when your buddies got dropped!” Utsura called back, but his voice seemed to echo down the passage and Revol couldn’t pin down where it was coming from. “Guess that’s the difference, though. You’re people underneath those bodies, but whatever’s controlling them only sees something it can turn into a soldier over and over again.”

            “That’s right, we’re immortal!” Revol called back. “Cut us down, we’ll back rise back up to fight again!”

            Utsura gave a hollow laugh from somewhere, like he’d been expecting to be blown back like that. “Sure, you’re a virus! You spread and take over everything you find because that’s what a virus _does_! A thinking being can decide to fight because they _should_! Because every thinking being’s got a right to a _future_!”

            By then the smoke was clearing, and as Revol looked around trying to spot his enemy he noticed a long red scarf fluttering in the near-darkness. Kamen Rider Utsura stood facing him, but didn’t move or retreat. The giant eyes in Utsura’s mask stared back, seeming to Revol that his enemy was hoping to defeat him through the force of his eyes alone.

            “That’s the problem with your kind,” Revol said as he aimed both of his guns at Utsura. “You make one mistake, and it’s all over!” He opened fire, Utsura pulling his _kusarigama_ from where they hung on his back and holding them in front of himself to block as many shots as he could.

            “Maybe, but ‘my kind’ has something else yours doesn’t,” Utsura growled through the pain of the machine-gun fire.

            “And just _what_ is that, human?” Revol asked in a smirking tone.

            His answer was delivered in an agonizing shot that hit him right between the shoulders. Revol looked over his shoulder in surprise, and there was a Kamen Rider wearing a business suit and tie, holding a still-smoking rifle.

            “You guys might have a lot of minions,” Utsura answered him. “But we have _friends_.”

            “Take him out, Hidenaga,” Sling said.

            Utsura did. “ **Ninja Critical Jutsu!** ” exclaimed his equipment. He threw both of his _kusarigama_ out and the blades embedded themselves into the monster’s armor. Utsura yanked backward on both of their chains and dragged Revol right up in front of him. Then he finished the job with a thrust of his _ninjato_ right through Revol’s armor.

            Finally Revol burst and flowed away down the hall. A familiar GAME CLEAR graphic spun above their heads, but the two Riders were focused more on the glowing object that appeared underneath it: a purple Dual Gashat, the closer label saying BANG BANG SIMULATIONS.

            “Hey look, we match,” Sling said holding up an identical Gashat.

            Utsura could only chuckle in exhaustion.

 

XXX

 

            Mmmm…

            The dark figure stared hard at the battles he’d watched take place in the Game Areas. Even in the ragged shape they’d been in, Utsura with his injury getting to the breaking point and Sling with his meager power level, they’d managed to recover the new items he’d been trying to keep away.

            Even with the power he’d managed to build up, he had to admit to himself these Kamen Riders were beginning to worry him. Activating the code he’d managed to arrange to lodge itself in CR’s computers, just barely enough to create something like that gremlin, had been a move of desperation. If the Riders hadn’t managed to catch up to it so quickly, he’d haven gotten those new games from the Brave Knight soon enough.

            Instead the NG Riders’ Levels had jumped dramatically and their numbers were about to swell.

            He’d have to act sooner than he’d been hoping.

            Still, he was the game.

            And what good’s a game with no players?   

 

XXX

 

            When the two Riders made it to the edge of the Game Area, Doku Dasao was already waiting for them. “Boy I’m sorry I missed this,” he said as he saw their new armor. “Looks like it was a hell of an adventure.”

            “Glad you could make it, Dasao,” Sling said. “I handled it okay even with Hidenaga holding me down, though.”

            “Hey, my monster’s still regenerating from last night,” Doku protested. When Sling released his armor and Doku could see the gentle smirk on Yoshoku’s face, though, he relaxed. He still jumped in surprise when Utsura pulled out his new game and split into Kensei, Poppy and Kiiko. “What happened to you guys? Those the games Hidenaga got last night?”

            “Yeah,” Yoshoku said. “I remember that aqua-something one you said Mishiranu was always making you play with her, but there was another game on that thing, wasn’t there?”

            Kensei nodded and smiled. “Yeah. The other one was called Demon Ninja. That one’s gonna be fun,” he said, but Yoshoku thought for sure he added under his breath, “If I live to use it.”

            “So that knight was right about you,” Yoshoku said.

            “….what?”

            “You were a demon after all,” he explained with a smirk, and both of laughed.

            Yoshoku held up the two Dual Gashats they’d won. “We got these,” he answered. “Think we should send ‘em back, or hang onto them? They look pretty awesome, huh?”

            Poppy grabbed one, and was surprised when the others laughed. “He was joking,” Kensei said.

            The Corrupture portal loomed above the city bigger than it ever had before. Currents of energy chased themselves across its surface with a speed, an _intensity_ none of the NG Riders could remember. Yoshoku looked down at the Gashat in his hand again before he said, “We are sure we’re sending these back to the good guys, right?”

            “When we sent them back Poppy came out, right?” Kensei reminded him.

            “You’re right,” Yoshoku said after a minute. “And if some kind of monster _does_ come out of there, we’ll just kick its ass. You ready, Hidenaga?”

            “Ready,” Kensei answered and they triggered the identical Gashats at the same time. The games floated out of their hands, up into the portal.

            The reaction was…dramatic.

            Cracks seemed to form in the sky itself from the ragged edges of the portal. Loud, angry THRUMing sounds started coming from it before bright flashes of white light broke out all over it. Bulges formed and retracted on the front of the portal as if something was fighting to get out.

Something _was_ , they were sure. But what would it turn out to be?

Four shapes wrapped in purple light fell out from the portal wall and floated down until they landed on the ground. They stood up, the light covering them fading away.

Poppy gasped.

The closest one to the NG Riders was a man in a long white doctor’s smock, his face dignified and his expression hard, almost showing contempt. The one next to him had on a bright yellow-green scarf and an even harder expression, a face so severe it looked like he was about to break into a scowl every second.

            Past the two of them was a lanky, slightly younger-looking man, wearing a red Hawaiian shirt decorated with patterns of sailboats under a leather jacket resting on his shoulders but his arms weren’t through the sleeves. He regarded the group with what seemed like curiosity, a playful kind of smile on his face.

            And the last of the new group wore another long white doctor’s smock. He had on bright red jeans, sneakers with a checkered pattern, and a grey t-shirt showing rows of colored blocks, a small white ball and a bar-like shape at the bottom. On the bottom of the shirt were the words ARKANOID: DOH IT AGAIN.

            He looked even younger than the one in the Hawaiian shirt, any one of the NG Riders would’ve called him “boyish.” Mainly it was the warm, friendly look on his face, even as he examined the Rider Gashats and other equipment they were carrying.

            “It looks you have a lot we need to hear,” he said. Poppy made a sound none of the NG Riders quite had a name for, somewhere between surprise and disbelief, and ran over to the four of them as the sun sank over the city.

 

**Stage Two: Console Wars, Clear**

**Stage Three: Porting Disaster, Start**

 

**See you Next game**

 

XXX

 

            **Well, getting _that_ done was certainly a journey. Mostly thanks to 25 with all the things that went on, and probably cost me most of my readership. ^^ (The thing about the gremlin appearing out of a computer was from some Corrupture code being snuck into CR…it happened at the very end of 18.)**

 

**Closing out the Console Wars arc, feel like I should address something: if it seemed weird that Machina Vision’s goals of getting better publicity and becoming a superior force to GENM kept getting stopped, well, that was kind of intentional. This last arc, as the name might imply, has been kind of a parody of the “wars” between rival game companies, when in reality all it comes down to is personal preference. They do things one way, the NG Riders do it another way, that’s all. One isn’t fundamentally better than the other.**

**But yeah, the CR Riders are back! When I thought about doing a sequel to Ex-Aid I wanted to make sure it was a respectful adaptation, and that meant not writing out the existing heroes. Especially not some bullshit where they’d only show up and get to help out for the last fight in the whole story.**

**Avoiding the headaches of starting with godly fighters and having to keep topping the level the show was at did mean resetting the power creep was the best of all the alternatives I came up with, though. And that did mean writing the existing Riders out for a while. At least until everyone was at a more comparable level.**

**That’s the whole story of how Kamen Rider Utsura was conceived, I guess! ^^ Kind of dull maybe, hopefully the actually story of Kamen Rider Utsura’s doing okay! New stuff to look forward to with the CR Riders back, and our real villain starting to show himself. Hope you’ll be back for a new arc!**


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